This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
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Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols, and you can find that on jamesgearing.com under the products tab.
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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome back onto the show,
former Orange County Battalion Chief, entrepreneur and the author of Alone in the Fire, Steve Davis.
Now I interviewed Steve along with Jason Wheat three years ago on episode 528, and that was immediately after his termination in connection with the vaccine mandates.
Three years later, we revisit this topic. We see the journey that Steve has come along, the contents of his book, and we unpack all of the things from viewing the pandemic from the back end now,
the important takeaway lessons, advocating for the first responders who continue to be terminated on this issue, and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 1000 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories,
so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I welcome back onto the show, Steve Davis. Enjoy.
Well, Steve, I want to start by saying firstly, welcome to my home. Last time I was in your home.
Yep. I sat down. We recorded episode 528 and it was you and Jason Wheat October 25th, 2021.
So I think you had just been let go from the county.
Again, I was kind of coming out of the pandemic, having stood in the middle and said we need to make people healthier mentally and physically during this heresy at that time.
But when it came to the vaccines, I had had a vaccination.
I went home to see my 105 year old grandmother.
So it took one for the team for her.
I wouldn't have had it otherwise.
But again, I was vaccinated, but talking against the whole mandate thing, because understanding science, being in medicine for a long time,
there was no way in hell that they were going to be able to prove that this basically flu shot that we all know is kind of a Russian roulette of if you get the right strain or not,
was 100% effective that you could justify termination.
So that was when we first sat down October 25th, 2021.
So what I want to do in this conversation is kind of roll it back, kind of give an overview of your early life again for people that haven't heard that episode.
And then we'll kind of pick up from where we last spoke and then really dig in deep from there.
All right, so let's start the very beginning.
Tell me where you were born.
Tell me a little bit about your family dynamic.
What did your parents do and how many siblings?
So, James, thanks.
Thanks for having me on the show again.
It's a pleasure being here at your home.
I loved our first conversation almost three years ago.
And it was, you're right, it was October 25th.
That would make it six days after my termination.
You were my first podcast.
And since your podcast, it's almost inspired me to start my own.
So I have my own show now called The Raising Alphas Project.
And we talk about parenting.
We talk about leaders, not followers.
And that's one of our biggest drives for our show is to make sure that we're building leaders because in the society that we have today, we were kind of just talking about that off the record.
But we don't have strong leaders.
You know, they're not millionaires.
The ones that are not millionaires are not there.
They're not getting the push.
But I can tell you that I grew up in Orlando, East Orange County.
So I'm a longtime resident of the department that I worked for.
I went to high school there.
I attended a Christian Academy.
My mom was a school teacher there.
My dad worked for Publix for years as a butcher.
And, you know, that's really my family dynamic.
I have a brother and I have two half sisters, both older than I am.
One is 10 years older, one six years older.
And I had a really good foundation as far as family life.
My parents were married the entire time I was growing up.
They didn't get a divorce until I entered the fire service in 2000.
I think it was 2008, but I entered in 2007.
But it was a good home life.
We weren't wealthy.
We were lower middle class.
But, you know, my parents made it happen.
Things happened for us.
They made lots of sacrifices.
And, you know, that's pretty much my family dynamic.
You know, three other people are three siblings.
So that's pretty much my family life.
What is your 9-11 story?
Because I know you went into the military, but before we get to that point,
talk to me about how old you were and what you kind of saw through a young man's eyes.
So I'm third generation U.S. Army.
I'm a soldier.
I went into the Army in 99 in the delayed entry program.
I went into basic training in the summer of 2000.
It's funny because, you know, all the training that I've done in my career,
it's always in the summer.
It's always hot.
And I don't know why I always get the hot times.
But I did basic training in the Georgia heat up in Fort Benning, Georgia.
And it was a year before the attack set in New York.
And I will tell you that when it happened, I was stationed in Germany.
I was a medic in the Army and I was stationed in Germany in an infantry unit.
We were doing some training that day.
We were out.
We were getting ready to prepare for, I believe it was we were preparing for the
expert field medic badge.
It's one of the most prestigious badges in the Army for medics.
And we were training for that.
And I remember our lieutenant, our second lieutenant called us in.
He was our platoon lieutenant, our platoon leader.
He had called us all in, brought us all into the aid station upstairs and said,
hey, listen, we all sat around his desk looking at the TV.
And they were talking about the World Trade Centers had just been hit by
two planes.
Now, at that moment, nothing had come down yet.
They were still burning.
And, you know, as a young man, I was, I think at the time I was 19.
And I remember thinking, oh, you know, just a couple of planes.
I'm thinking small little Cessnas, you know, that kind of a singular, a single
plane, not double.
I didn't think that there was one in the Pentagon.
There was one in Pennsylvania.
I didn't hear all that yet.
I only heard two planes hit the towers.
I'm thinking maybe some guys were screwing around or something as a young man.
That's when we found out, listen, we are we're going to war and you know,
being an infantry unit, I remember going out of that meeting and having to go to
the go get my rifle.
They sent us down to the armory.
We started getting ammo.
We got full battle rattle.
We packed our bags ready to roll.
Now we didn't roll anywhere at that moment, but being in a Ford unit somewhere
in Germany and believing that the attacks are coming from somewhere in the
Middle East, that's what we were being told.
Those commanders prepped us, prepared us.
Those leaders said, hey, listen, we got to get the troops ready.
So that was that was where I was.
Did you find yourself deployed eventually?
I was a very, I was one of the fortunate few.
So I had lots of friends who did deploy.
I never did.
In that year, 2001, at the end of that year, I'm trying to think, make sure I
have my timeline.
Oh no, it was 2002.
So the war began in March of 2003.
And in 2002, I was PCS saying I was leaving and going to another duty, duty
assignment, and I had orders to go to flight medic program.
And my, my unit was going to be deploying to deploying to Kosovo for a
peacekeeping mission.
Well, I asked to go.
It got denied by my lieutenant.
He says, listen, if you go, then it'll mess up your orders going forward.
So I ended up not going to go.
Honestly, I mean, looking back, I think God always has a plan and that even
though I really wanted to go, he knew that who knows what would have happened.
I could have been dead.
I've had, I have several close friends of mine in the army that are dead today.
They didn't make it out and some died.
I'm right now.
We're going to talk about it later, but some died from, um, uh, they took their
life, um, afterwards, but I can tell you that, you know, I'm not going to lie.
Uh, I can tell you that, you know, God had a plan for me because he was prepping
me, uh, for a lifetime of leadership.
And so that's where I look at that.
I ended up not deploying anywhere.
I ended up going to, uh, California and becoming a medic on a Blackhawk.
And, uh, that's, that's where my military ended.
We're going to get into the fire service medicine.
When you look back at all the training you had in the military, what was some
of the things that you were taught there that you think, you know, would be an
asset to us in the civilian side.
So the one thing and I've lived, um, I've lived to this, uh, since I was 17 is
the army has an acronym called leadership and the acronym is spelled out L D R S H
H I P. And I've lived by that since I was 17, um, 42 years old.
Now I still live to that by, by today's standard and what that stands for
leadership, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and
personal courage. And I've lived by that every single day.
And I know that that is the true core values of a real leader.
Um, and I think the army has done a really good job as far as developing leaders.
Um, that's where it started.
If you really start reading books, it starts in the military and building on
those leaders.
And I think the army did a really good job coming up with that acronym.
And I, and I don't know if they have it today.
I hope they still do, but I, I've lived by it since I was 17 years old.
And I would say that if, if someone is looking at being in a leadership role,
I think that that's somewhere to start.
Now, if you're in the military, if you're in police, um, fire, if you're in a
leadership role, maybe at a, at an organization that a business, I think
that those still, those still core values still can be applied.
Um, we can go down each one for as long as, you know, as long as we're going to
talk, but I think you kind of get the idea that, you know, with leadership,
that acronym loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity,
and personal courage.
I think if you stick to those, those, uh, seven letters, those in that
acronym, I think that you can really, uh, base your character on that.
Yeah.
I think that's the thing that when you are in the military, when you're in the
first responder profession, I would argue, you know, if you're a teacher,
there's many of these, these professions, you know, your, your goal is to make
the world a little bit better.
And I think that's what we're missing.
Like you said, we, we spoke before I hit record and I've made this very clear
in many, many podcasts, you know, to me, I'm standing in the middle, even as we
go into another election season, like, why do we keep getting these same kind
of people that we're forced to choose?
And I hear it from left and right, the lesser of two evils.
What we need is selfless leaders that don't have to be in the middle of
leaders that don't have to be millionaires and don't have to take money
from lobbyists that actually can just be a true leader of which I've had almost
a thousand episodes now, there's probably, you know, tens, if not hundreds
of my guests that would be phenomenal in that position.
So I think, yeah, that, that selflessness rather than that self-serving nature,
whether it's a, you know, a fire engine or a country that's such a, a kind of
under discussed element of leadership.
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
The leaders, unfortunately, I think in today's society, what I've noticed is,
and I, and I understand this, I understand this.
I saw this firsthand back in 2020, back in 2021, when I lost my career in the
fire service, but I, I realized this, people who get into leadership's
leadership positions, they rely on that position.
That's their income.
So once you've gained, you've climbed this ladder of success, it's hard to
step off that ladder into uncharted territory to make decisions because you
and I have both seen it in our careers where if you get out of line and say
something that you shouldn't as a leader, then you can almost be blackballed.
And then you don't get that next promotion or you don't get picked for this.
It's almost like the popularity contest.
In my case, I lost my career because I in quote unquote, stepped out of line.
Had I not stepped out of line, had I been a chief officer who, you know, I had it,
I had it made.
It's funny because as a chief officer, and I joke with my wife about this is
because, you know, when she come to the firehouse, I would, I would say, hey, do
you need anything?
Do you want anything?
And she's like, oh, I'm good.
She's just, you know, just hanging out with me or whatever.
And she would, I said, you do know, I said, guys are going to come in here and
asking you everything, washing your car.
If you want coffee, if you want something, you know, something like that.
And it's, it's crazy because I'm like, I was like, you get this level of respect
and, and, and it's a, it's a cool feeling.
I'm not going to lie.
It's a cool feeling.
And it's almost like, you know, my wife coming into the office, it's almost
like the first lady.
That's how I kind of explained it to her.
And it's like, she had never seen that before, but when the guys came over and
she came over for dinner, it was like, hey, you can sit anywhere.
What do you want to eat?
Oh, we got dinner.
Don't everything's taken care of.
And so I think what happens in the fire service and in any profession, you, you
become this leader and you don't want to step out of line because if you do that,
that that goes every hard, every bit of hard work that you've worked for up
until that point is gone.
That's why I think we didn't see doctors being true leaders over the last few
years, because they're governed by, by someone else, you know, you work your
whole life to get, and you pay off your debt to be a doctor, an attorney,
whatever, and you don't step out of line because when you do, then now you're no
longer in the cool kids club and you could lose your career.
I know, I know several physicians who've lost their jobs around the world.
I know firemen around the country, around the world who've lost their jobs,
you know, lost positions of, uh, you know, good positions, chief officer
position, captains, um, it's, it's just crazy.
So I understand that's why we have a leadership problem today.
Yeah.
And it was, it was completely apparent because, you know, when we go in the fire
service, you see someone with a load of stripes on their, their class, a jacket
or, you know, bugles on the collar.
You're like, oh, wow, this is, you know, this is who I'm going to follow into a
fire.
No question.
And then you spend a few years in the fire service and you're like, Oh, man,
like band of brothers analogy, you salute the rank, not the class, but the
analogy, you salute the rank, not the man.
Correct.
And you realize that some of these men, you will blindly follow into a fire
because they have walked the walk.
And there's other men, they tell you to go into the fire.
You're going to fucking turn right away because they have no idea what they're
doing because they, they sped up the ladder and avoided fires, you know?
And so, you know, no two leaders are the same, you know, there's a boss and a
leader.
So, and then you saw it with the pandemic and I've talked about this so
many times.
If you wrote down how to make people sicker and more vulnerable to a disease,
that's exactly what people were told to do.
Don't be around people, stay on your own, you know, lose your autonomy, just stay
in your house and we'll tell you when you can come out.
The gyms are closed, the beaches are closed, the parks are closed, you know,
but then you can go get fast food and alcohol delivered to your house while
you binge watch Tai Ge King.
And so this is the thing is I'm standing there going, what about health, whether
you believe in vaccines or not, whether you believe in masks or not, whether
you believe in vaccines or not, whatever your perception, we have a captive
audience, we can affect the people's health now and we can fix some of the
issues that have made Americans so fat and sick.
And I mean that with compassion, but you look at statistics, they are fat and
sick, 70%.
So what a beautiful opportunity to turn that corner and, you know, put PE back
in schools, put real food back in schools, actually give the local farmers,
you know, subsidies so they can make local, you know, clean food.
And it was the opposite.
All that stuff was literally held as heresy.
How dare you say that my hypertensive 300 pound grandma didn't die of COVID.
And it's like that's an insult to everyone that responds on a rescue to
your grandmother for a CHF over and over and over again.
So this was the thing is where were the fucking leaders then when common sense
was completely discarded?
That's honestly during 2020, I asked a lot of these questions.
I, this is a year and a half before I got fired and this may have been the, the
foundation that I was laying for my termination because I was very outspoken.
I was an individual that was asking questions like you are, you are telling me
that we are sending an engine and a rescue to people's homes every day for
every single call.
And now that this is the deadliest plague that's hit mankind.
Now I'm only sending two people.
And these two people are getting, they're getting murdered all day long on a
rescue.
The, the engine companies were hanging out of the firehouses.
You know, we were playing pickleball.
Okay.
And the rescues were getting, getting murdered.
They were, they were in and out, in and out.
I remember, and I, and I talk about this, I've talked about this before, but I
remember a young man, a young guy on the, a, came in, coming in.
He wasn't assigned to the station.
Okay.
He had got floated in and he had been out all morning running around
running calls.
Okay.
And he had gotten, and we were putting everybody in that, the Tyvek suits, the
Tyvek suits.
Yeah.
And so he was coming back and having to change his shirt and pants every single
time, cause it was soaked and then he'd get less than a minute or whatever to
change.
He had three shirts, maybe two pairs of pants by noon.
He had gone through everything and I had to find him a pair of parents, a pair of,
uh, uh, some shirts, why his stuff was being washed.
And this is the kind of, this is the kind of environment.
So I was, I was constantly asking my leadership as a chief officer.
I was asking my leadership is what are these guys going to do?
Are they taking it home to their families?
What happens when their family gets sick?
Are we covering, are we covering medical expenses when these guys get sick and
they take it to their families?
Okay.
What are we doing for this?
What, what if we don't have, we didn't have the mask at first and then, then
the mask came out and it said, not for, not for COVID use or whatever.
Uh, it won't, won't protect from COVID, you know, and then, uh, and then, you
know, people calling out sick or sending people home sick and mandating people
day to day to day.
It just, we weren't getting any answers and it was like our leadership was like,
well, I'm here till five and then I'm going home.
We'll figure it out tomorrow.
I'm here till five.
We'll figure it out tomorrow.
You know,
Well, it's the same thing I'm fighting now with, with the work week, you know,
I put a post up a while ago.
The people that say firefighters should work 56 hours a week, go home at five
every day and they work 40 hours.
Let that sink in.
The people that are opposing you getting more rest and recovery and opposing, you
know, the issues that will solve the recruitment crisis is causing so much
mandatory overtime that's keeping responders from their families 80 plus
hours a week.
They go home after 40.
You know what, man?
I get phone calls daily, text messages daily from my family.
From guys that we worked with asking me what I'm doing.
They see that I'm doing well.
They see that I'm out of the fire service and I tell them, I said, I love
the fire department.
I really do.
I had every intent on making it a long term, a long term career.
That was my dream, my passion since I was a kid.
I asked it to be it in the fire in the army.
Unfortunately, they had gotten rid of it just as I was getting in.
I got out just to go in and I see these guys today and they're miserable.
They hate, they hate going into shift.
They hate dealing with station life.
Station life is not the brotherhood.
Guys are in their bunks on their phones, messing around on whatever social media
account they have and or they're running their business on the side.
Maybe they have real estate.
Maybe they have a landscaping business and they're managing it or maybe they're
doing something on the side.
These are the things that I get phone calls all the time.
Guys are just unhappy.
They're constantly getting hammered.
Whether it's on an engine, a rescue, a truck, a squad.
They're getting hammered day in, day out.
It's like no one cares.
It's like, well, you got to work again today.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Don't know what to tell you.
Well, this is what I talk about is no one's complaining about the job.
No one's saying, oh my God, these hoses are so heavy.
Oh, this ladder is so tall.
I don't want to climb it.
No one's saying that.
Some people are.
Well, yeah, but that's what happens when you lower hiring standards.
But that's a whole different conversation.
We can go on for a long time on that one.
But it's the working environment.
It's the working conditions.
And I was just talking to someone.
There's an EMS department in Virginia.
I just posted about it this morning.
They, one of their guys, Ben, has been going back and forth with me for a few years.
And he started talking about 2472.
And at that time I said, and I said, well, Boca is the one I know that's gone to it.
And since then I've had a whole bunch of conversations on it.
And then we were going back and forth and they've gone to it.
And they just, it was in EMS one.
They had the biggest medic and EMT hiring they've ever had.
Yeah.
Because they changed.
They didn't change the job.
They just changed the working conditions.
So this is the thing is no one's complaining apart from, like I said, that group, no one's saying
I don't want to be a firefighter.
No one's saying I don't want to be a medic like you.
I love being a medic.
I love, I didn't want to be in a hospital.
I want to be a firefighter, but that's where you save lives in the back of a rig.
It is.
But if you're running on complete BS and then what happened to me so much in Orange County,
which is why I had to go to Reedy Creek because I was a single dad, was 730, the phone rings
gearing, you got to stay another shift.
I was like, you're telling me I've got, I got a home.
So you just met my son.
Yep.
You know, when he was, when we're talking now, like he had his own.
Yeah.
You know, and you're telling me I can't go home.
That's that's not how it works.
You're not the only, only single father in Orange County that has dealt with that.
No, exactly.
There are other men out there that have dealt with that.
There are women out there that have dealt with that and they constantly, there are spouses
out there that there are firefighters out there.
They have a spouse that works for another department and they were doing a trade off
every morning or they've made it so they're at the same firehouse.
Okay.
And it's, it's a, it's a child swap right there at seven o'clock in the morning.
One comes in, one goes home and well, one's getting mandatory while the other one's got
to work at 24.
What do you do?
Yeah.
And mandatory is fine.
You know, we have a hurricane coming in and it's going to batter, you know, central
Florida.
That's when you have to call the grandparents or whoever, which I don't have any of those.
But, but if you have this every single week, if you're avoiding it every single week, it
takes a toll on an individual.
Yeah.
But you know what?
This is a, this is the problem in the fire services.
You know, we, we talk about the brotherhood.
I've seen it.
I've seen it firsthand, you know, the brotherhood on a good side, but I've also seen the bad
side of the brotherhood, how it doesn't really exist anymore because too many firefighters,
too many, too many fire service personnel will.
They will screw their brother to get, get away.
I've seen guys do it.
Like I don't want to get hit, but I don't care if you get hit.
And if I leave now and skate out, I've seen guys do it.
No, tell them, not here, skate out.
And then now you get, you get banged and you just got banged last shift.
And so I've seen it so, so many times as a chief, as a lieutenant, you know, as a
fireman, I didn't really pay attention to it because I was only getting hit.
That's the thing.
You just shrug your shoulders and go, okay, because you just think that's normal and
then you emerge and go, wait a second.
Right.
You start really noticing it.
And that's, that's, that's what's real sad, you know, not sure, not, I think that's a
leadership issue.
I think that's a, I think there's a lot of things that could, we could bring into why
that, that problem still exists, why that that's starting to become more prevalent.
In the fire service.
Yeah. Well, I don't want to go down the whole 24 72 conversation because I want to keep
it on, on topic, but that is the solution.
But, um, so let's go back to the military.
The transition often is very jarring and we'll talk about leaving the fire service
and get to there, but especially our military members, you know, they've become
veterans, you've got this identity.
A lot of them came right out of high school into uniform.
Again, as someone pointed out the other day, you know, you've got your food, you've
got your clothing, you've got your, you've got your, you've got your, you've got your
clothing, you've got your stipends, you've got all the things.
And then now you lost your identity, you lost your tribe, you've lost your sense of
purpose, you know, and you're out into the cruel world.
Some of which has prepared you for some of which is kind of alien.
What was your transition like?
And then are there, you mentioned other, other friends that you lost by suicide.
What was some of the dark kind of transitions that you've seen as well?
So, you know, when I got out of the army, I had every intent to go back.
My goal, so I was living in California and I flew back here to Florida, two
different weekends to take testing, to test.
And I remember standing for the written test.
It was like 1500 people standing in line for 30 spots.
And I also remember getting all the way through and I remember, okay, I'm going
to put in my paperwork to leave the military.
And so when I got out, I ended up not getting picked up with Orange County.
It was kind of funny too, because I was in the greatest shape.
Well, I'm in the greatest shape now, but at the time, you know, I was, I was really
fit.
I had just been training.
I was training to go into the special forces.
I ended up going into a selection.
It's called a special forces assessment and selection.
Greenberry selection.
Greenberry.
Yep.
And I ended up doing, it was a four week course.
I made it three weeks and then failed out.
And so I had been training for months because my, my buddy was, he had made it
through a selection and then he and I ran into each other.
I was in phase one.
He was in phase two and, but I was in really good shape, but I remember making
it through the test and I had one of the top, I think they call it a PAT at the
time and now they call it the CPAT, but it was the PAT at the time.
And I had one of the fastest times at then.
Okay.
And I remember there was a young, a young girl with me and she ended up
getting picked up and she failed that same, same test and we were talking about it.
And I ended up seeing, I ended up getting picked up years later and seeing her on,
on a, on a board, on a, on a wall with a picture.
And I was like, wow, like I can't believe like that's, that's how this is.
So that was my transition.
I ended up working for health central paramedics for a couple, about a two and
a half years before I got picked up again, but before I went through the next
process and got finally picked up.
But yeah, that was my transition.
I went right from the army, right into health central, health central and
the orange County.
So it was not, you know, I was still in the field.
So you mentioned losing some of your, your friends.
Yeah.
What's the other side of that?
So, yeah, I mean, transitioning out of the military, I, like I said, I intended
on going back if I didn't make it to orange County, I gave myself, I was
going to give myself two, two years.
It ended up being two and a half, but I was in the hiring process during that
time. I was going to go back into the army, but I mentioned earlier that I was
one of the fortunate few who ended up not going to war, but, you know, I lost
a couple of my roommates when they went to Iraq.
I believe we, I believe we, we started bombing in March of 2002 and my unit
that had gone to Kosovo, they had gotten back.
I think they had like a 30 day R and R.
And 30 day R and R and they had gotten orders to go drop into Iraq.
And that would have been me.
Had I not gone to flight medic school, that would have been me.
And one of my buddies had gotten hit by a mortar and he had died.
He was a really close friend of mine.
Another one of my buddy was a flight medic.
He was making a save and he made the first save.
He was, they, we had in the, in the black hawk, you had, you had a
I think it's called a jungle penetrator.
So it's like a little seat that you sit on with a boom that comes out of the
helicopter, and then you just kind of, you ride the cable down on the seat
and then you can pick someone up.
So we used to train on that when I was in a helicopter, but, um, he had
ended up making a save and he had gone down.
There was two, there was two victims, two casualties, and he ended up, um,
going down, getting the first one, coming back up, putting them in the helicopter
went back to get the second one.
And then the aircraft started taking fire.
So in our safety crew, um, brief before we start our shift in the helicopter,
uh, the pilots would go through safety briefing and all this thing.
But one of the safety briefings was, um, if you're on the JP, if you're,
if you're riding it and we, if something were to happen, you know, something
with auto rotation or something with something with the helicopter, we're,
we got to land the helicopter at a murder and he was like, Oh, I'm
going to land the helicopter at emergency and you're a hundred feet dangling,
200 feet dangling.
It's faster to get to as close to the ground and lower you and then cut the
cord versus taking a hard abort, you know, uh, move, uh, maneuver.
And then now you're, you're getting thrown into the blades.
So this is exactly what happened to Heath and, um, they'd taken a fire.
They ended up releasing them.
Uh, he ended up falling to his death.
So very, very unfortunate.
Two of my closest friends, Johnny and Heath, uh, two of my closest
friend when I was stationed in Germany.
And then, oh, another one of my roommates was Shane.
Um, he ended up losing his, losing his arm and, and, uh, an about in a gunfight
and, um, he was from Michigan.
I went back to Michigan, got discharged from the army.
Um, uh, Shane, Shane was a heavy gambler when we were together and he
was a heavy drinker.
Uh, he was constantly drunk on when we, when we got off at night on the
weekends, he would go get a case of Bud Light and he would, he would drink it
until he, he couldn't move.
Um, and you know, being a young kid, I mean, we were all young.
You could drink legally in Germany at 18.
Um, and he was a year older than I, so, um, you know, you could see that he had a
drinking problem and as a young man, I don't know those kinds of things.
You don't recognize, you expect your leaders to recognize, recognize those
things.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of leaders that don't pay attention.
They don't give a, give a shit.
So anyways, Shane ended up, um, losing his arm, going back home, and then he
ended up taking his life.
Um, I, I, I'd never spoke to Shane after, you know, after I left Germany.
Um, but I heard about him and I, and I, and I found out about him is because,
um, his wound was featured in a, a, um, um, a PowerPoint slide.
Um, and that's how I found out you could, I could see him.
I recognize him and I could see, you know, he was well, he was, he was
whatever, you know, he was missing his arm and amputee.
And, um, you know, uh, it was, it was a training video, you know, for the
military.
And so it was, it was, you know, reused.
And I remember seeing, seeing Shane and then, you know, doing some digging,
calling some old friends.
They're like, yeah.
Um, they released him.
He actually just took his life.
So, um, it's just one of those things.
Yeah.
It's, it's so sad because I mean that now through eight years of all these
conversations with, you know, people that have been through those struggles
and the mental health professionals and all the, all the conversations I've had,
there's been a massive realization that we bring stuff into the uniform.
And if you're not addressing that as well, because that can be an absolute
strength, it becomes resilience, but you get people that find themselves in
uniform.
A lot of times we've had checkered pasts, you know, and that doesn't have to be a
bad thing, but we've got stuff that we're supposed to deal with.
And then you put us into seeing the horrible shit we see on the streets here
or fighting overseas, you know, now it's compounding it.
Now you send that person back, they get hurt, you know, obviously with him,
I'm assuming that was the end of his military career, you know, so he gets
treated.
Yeah, he's gone.
You've lost tribe, you've lost everything.
So everything that was kind of healing for him, probably, because I'm assuming
he wasn't drunk when he was on op.
So he was able to probably now if he was deployed, they, you know, have limited
access to any of that stuff.
So he was, you know, he was filling those voids with, with war, with excitement
and brotherhood and, and then all of we spit them out the other end.
And it's like, all right, good luck, you know, and obviously we have the VA, but
I mean, I've heard the same exact conversation over and over again, as they
just throw pills at them.
So, you know, again, we talk about broken systems.
A lot of that comes from a good place.
They want to fix it, but we're not looking at the whole picture.
And if you've got a young Marine soldier firefighter who's struggling at 18, 19
years old, and you're not talking about early life, then you're missing the
massive piece of the puzzle.
You go, oh, well, you were at war and he lost your arm.
That's why you're struggling.
No, his dad was an alcoholic or his uncle touched him or whatever.
Sure.
That's probably going to be part of the early life that if it's not addressed,
that's why we lose so many of these young soldiers and firefighters and cops.
In, I talk about it in my book, chapter three, it's called plagues.
And I really dive into like the pandemic during the plague, but in that chapter,
I also talk about some of the last moments in Orange County for me.
I was one of the dive adjuncts started the dive team.
And when I was there and I ended up, I didn't make it to what it is today there.
I could give credit to Brandon for that.
Brandon has done an amazing job, but I was the one that had started the program.
And I ended up, I ended up having conversations because at that time,
2020, 2021, we were, I guess it was going into 2021.
We were, we were doing training and we had lost firemen.
And in a, I've been out of, from Orange County for since October of 2021.
And it was December, November, December of 2020.
So we're coming up on four years.
In that four year period, Orange County, I counted it out the other day.
They've lost seven Orange County firefighters to suicide.
And I talk about four of them in my book.
Three have just recently taken their life.
And after my, after my book has come out, not after my book has come out,
but after, after I wrote it all, but three more had, have, have taken their life.
Now, a lot of people look at me and say, oh, well, these guys weren't active duty.
You know, some of them are retired.
Yes. There was a couple of retirees that I add into that statistic.
And, but you, I, I don't want to get away from that because as you just kind of
mentioned, you know, it may take a career.
Okay. You and I have been, I've been in the fire service for over 20 or I've been in
public safety doing what I've done in public safety for over 22 years.
I know you've got a pretty long history in the fire service.
Yeah. 14 actually in uniform at 20. Cause another six doing this.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I consider it still in the fire.
So yeah, I agree. Um, so I look at the ones that are retired, they saw 25, 30 years of
terror. They saw things that people can't even imagine that you would see in a horror film.
Um, things that have happened to children, things that have happened to the elderly.
And it's not just, it's not just horrific events, just like very sad.
And so you go through this emotional roller coaster as a first responder and see in the
military, if you go to war, you happen, this all happens quickly. You see four or five of your guys
taken out in one, one explosion. Okay. If you watch the, the it's a great HBO series, but you
watch the band of brothers. Oh, I love it. And one of my favorite, I've watched it like three,
four times. Um, but you look at that and those guys are losing their friends, their brothers,
right? Like real quick, the replacements are coming in, you know? And I will tell you that it's,
it's, it's difficult for military guys, but if you talk about first responders, we just had a first
responder, a Lake County, um, sheriff, uh, had his life taken the other day, you know, he went to go
help somebody and then his life gets taken. Okay. And so now his two partners that were with them,
that took, took, took fire as well, have to live with that. Okay. How long are they going to be
able to live with that? And we don't talk about this stuff. And, you know, so, uh, some of the
last moments that I had in orange County, these are some of the things that I was addressing.
I was addressing the only thing that I could address was when I did my station rounds,
I would talk to my crews about it. And, and then when, if I wanted to talk to people outside,
we were a big department. The other people I would talk to you was on the dive program.
I have five or six, uh, firefighters that were divers that we were doing training. I would take
10 minutes and I'd say, Hey, let's chat about this. I'm always here. Everybody has my number.
Let's chat about this. And the one thing I didn't want to happen, we had just lost four firefighters.
Two were rookies, two were retirees. Okay. And at the same time, we lost one of my closest friend,
Eric Sienna, uh, to brain cancer. I interviewed Eric weeks before he passed away. And I remember
seeing him, uh, weeks before he passed away and I just didn't recognize him. Eric used to come into
my, my bunk room as when I was a chief and he would pick the lock cause I'd lock it, pick the lock.
And he would sit, I had a little recliner sit next to my bunk, my bed, and he would sit down,
recline in it and just sit there with his white mocha, uh, like, Hey, uh, lazy, you getting up?
You know, and he would, he would bust my balls for stuff like that. But, um, yeah,
seeing him the last couple of weeks, it was, it was bad. And, uh, I, I, I had the honor of carrying
his, uh, carrying him and his helmet, um, to the, to the truck, um, and then leading, leading the
procession down to the, uh, the church, uh, from his house. So that was, that was a true, a true honor.
I was there the night that he had a seizure, um, at the station, at the station. I was, I, I,
even as the, the head of the battalion, I never, I never, it's my rule. I don't set up the head
of the table. I just don't, I don't do it. That's my rule. And, um, so Eric was sitting at the head
of table. He was sitting to the right of me and I remember him, we were making jokes or whatever,
and it looked like he was, it looked like he was, uh, uh, making a funny noise, but he was actually
seizing. And then he started choking on his, uh, uh, the, the meat had, he had just taken a bite of
the chicken. And so, um, um, grabbed him, recognized it, right? Grabbed him, put him down on the ground,
opened up a shirt, put my hand in his mouth, grabbed the chicken out of his mouth, you know,
and then the crew just amazing, amazing job worked them. And then we got them to the hospital,
but all this had happened within a short, a short period of time, less than a five month period.
And we've lost five, five people and, uh, five firefighters. And then you look back and another
guy takes his life. Another guy takes his life. And then just recently another guy takes his life
by a drug overdose. Um, it's, it's now he wasn't an orange County fireman anymore, but you have to,
you have to say where, where did all this come from and where was the leadership helping him?
So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's like, and it's funny cause I've, I've interviewed World War
two veterans. I just interviewed a couple in Dallas last year in December, I think it was,
and I talked to them about it. We, you know, no one would ever dare to say,
Oh, why doesn't that vet World War two veterans just suck it up? You know, that was only three,
four, five years of service. And I say only that the tempo of some of these guys, they saw some
stuff, but you know, and it was interesting cause I had one, um, on the show who was, uh, one of the
original Marine Raiders on Iwo Jima and he was wounded on Iwo Jima and he wrote a book on PTSD.
I mean, you talk about an amazing human being to have that much vulnerability in his late nineties
to talk about PTSD, but we call them the greatest generation. And you actually now, again, through
storytelling through this, you hear how grand that actually was from most of the people about our
age and, Oh, he didn't come home and just roll his sleeves up. He drank and he beat his wife. And,
and you know, again, it's not a criticism. It's just the reality. We paint them as they just got
back to work and made America great. And that was it. No, no, they had to deal with trauma.
And if they didn't drill with trauma, it's the same as a firefighter. Now it eats away at them
it eats away at them and it becomes alcoholism and domestic violence and infidelity or whatever
the thing is. So to, to just say, Oh, well, they don't work for us anymore. Shrug their shoulders.
They work for you for 10, 15, 20 years and you're just going to be, Oh, well,
you know, they were retired. Like, no, that's bullshit. And it's not just what they did.
It's their entire life from, you know, in vitro all the way through to today. But if you're saying
that 20 years in Orange County didn't play a part of it, then shame on you. Even five years. I mean,
you know, if you work where we've worked, you know, I work California, I work here and everywhere.
We're Hialeah, you know, the OBT area in Orange County, you know, Anaheim's downtown was gangland.
So, I mean, you see horrible shit over and over and over again. And then you just kind of pop
someone out the back door and close down the bay doors and then good luck. Here's Cobra for a year.
Go fuck yourself. So tooth. Yeah. And now that's the truth. So two, yeah, two things though on that,
you know, it's, it's, you have, you have people that don't realize there are so many demons
that, that can attack you when you start going through this. And you had mentioned several of
them right there and what it takes, you know, to become this evil person where now all you're doing
is contemplating suicide. I don't know if you've, I don't know if you've heard the recent music,
the recent song by Papa Roach and Carrie Underwood. Yes. Amazing song. I've been playing
it nonstop since it came out. I love it. It truly hits home, you know, not, not home for me, like,
you know, cause I've gone through those, those, those, those demons. I, I personally have not,
but I mean, it really hits home in the fact that, you know, you want to leave the light on for
somebody else. You want to be that, that, Hey, I'm here for you. And, um, I know people who have
gone through these things and I have reached out and I've been that and I've, and, and just telling
you the story about, you know, some of the stuff I talked about with a dive team and with my stations,
those opportunities, that's where it hits home for me. And you look back and you look back at just
like Papa Roach's, um, his, um, uh, Jacoby's first Infest, um, album and, and he talks about,
and that, and that album, uh, suicide and where he's contemplating suicide and you know, people,
it's, it's, it's someone that's screaming out for like help, help, help, help. And so I love this,
I love this new, um, rendition of the, of his song with Carrie Underwood. It's an amazing,
amazing, if people are listening and haven't heard it, uh, leave the light on, uh, with Papa
Roach and Carrie Underwood, it's an amazing, he's got an amazing voice. We all know Carrie has an
amazing voice, but, um, just, just a true Testament of, of what a person can do if they just take the
time to listen to somebody and to like recognize some of these, these key traits of, of someone
wanting to take their life. It's really sad, but you know, people will work day in and day out.
And I was kind of going at it a little earlier, but there is why, why do people stay so long in
the fire service? You know, we taught, we said, how many times that we sat at the dinner table and
said, Oh, 25 years and I'm out 25 years and I'm out 30 years. I know guys that are 25 years and
they're like, I just got to do five more years and I can pay off my truck. I'm going to go on the drop
at 30 and I can do another five. Oh wait, no, they just bumped it up to eight years. Why are,
why are we chasing this carrot for 30 years only to be 60, 65 years old? And then now you can't do
nothing anymore. You're you've, you've ate like crap for 25, 30 years, you know, and a lot of
times they, it's because we don't know anything else. We don't believe that we can do anything
else. We don't believe that we are more than just a fireman. We are more than just, that's all we
know. And things that I talk about on, on my show is like, we are more than that. You know, I'm, I
wasn't, I, my passion for my entire life was to be a fireman. That's all I ever wanted to do. That's
all I ever wanted to be at orange County took it from me. They stole my passion, the career that I
chose. I was, I was next in line to be assistant chief. I was next in line to be the fire chief.
Okay. And, and they've, and these, these government entities have taken it from me and I've realized
today, and that's, that's what I talk about a lot now and in my personal journey with some of the
businesses that I do. And then in my podcast is I want people to know that they're more valuable
with what people are telling them. And I think if we really start talking to people like that, that
you're more valuable, you're more than just fill in the blank, you're more than just a teacher of
a fireman, a police officer, a doctor, you know, you don't have to work 25 years doing this one
thing and thinking, this is all you're good at. Okay. There's so many talents and so many things.
There's so much, there's so much opportunity, especially in this country opportunity around
the world. I mean, I see once I stepped out of the fire service, uh, there's, there's, I've talked
about it on a show with a close friend of mine, but there's the red car theory for the red car,
red card, red car theory. Um, it sounds familiar, but I certainly don't remember the specifics.
So red car theory is like, we're driving down the road and you're just driving. All right. You don't
pay no attention. And I said, Hey, James, have you seen a red car in the last 15 minutes? You're
like, no, I haven't. But as soon as I said that now, red car, red car, red car, red car, red car,
right. I've opened up that, that, that door for you to notice the red car. Well, then in 10 minutes,
I say, Hey, have you noticed a green car? And you're like, nah, shit. Now we look for green
cars now. So now you're seeing red and green, red and green, red and green. Okay. So what that
represents is opportunity. So once I left the fire service, the only thing that I knew was let's,
let's get at the dinner table. Let's talk about the cool call, the cool fire, the cool pen job.
All right. Let's complain about the management because they suck. All right. Let's complain
about the union because they really suck. All right. Uh, they're not doing anything. They're not,
they're claiming 25% this year. They're just feeding us a bunch of bullshit. Okay. Uh,
we're going to get 3% right. Working against fitness standards and short. Yeah, they're,
they're lowering the bar, going against fitness standards, all kinds of different things.
So, I mean, so I look at it and I, and, and, and now I tell people, I'm like, look, we,
you have to sit at a different table. One of my most recent episodes sitting at a different table.
I don't sit at the same table with people that are used to, I don't talk about football and the
cool pen job and the fire and the cool fire. I just ran. I don't talk about that anymore. I talk
about business, finance, education, reading different books, getting educated. Uh, how can
I better myself to better other people fitness? Okay. Uh, I had this conversation with my brother
last night is like, take some personal, uh, self dis, have some self-discipline, take some personal,
um, uh, what am I trying to say? Uh, be accountability. Great. You know, if, if you're
a fat ass, okay. He, I kept saying that to him last night. I said, stop being a fat ass. And that,
and if that offends you, if you're listening to this and that offends you, then maybe that's a
good thing. You know, I want you to be offended because I don't want you to be a fat ass. I want
you to be healthy. I want you to live a good solid life. Okay. And if me telling you that triggers
you, then go get in the gym, work out two, three times a week, start it off slow, you know, drink
water, stop eating crap, you know? Um, and there's other things. It's hard to do that here, but I
want people to, to talk about different things and better themselves. And those are some of the
things that I'm looking at today. Do you know who Bedros Kulian is? No, he is, uh, I think he's
Armenian. It's been a while since we talked, but he was a, an immigrant again, massive childhood
trauma, you know, very poor immigration story. And now he, you know, if you look at any of those kind
of empower entrepreneur, you know, programs and conferences, Bedros is there a lot, but I've
actually got to interview him through, uh, credit to Julian Serrano for connecting us. He's a firefighter
that went through his program and kind of had him as a mentor, but, uh, it was a great conversation
because he's worked with cops and firefighters. And he's like, the problem with you guys is you
just think you can only do copying and firefighting. That's a fact. It's like you're problem solvers
and you're well in teams and you work well under stress and you know, you have this diverse set
of skills and he's absolutely right. You know, and this is the problem is, and it's the same with the
military, you know, you come out and you're like, Oh, I was just, I was a gunner and I was an
infringement. Yeah. And it's not, you know, but you can apply that to so many areas. And if,
if, if you find yourself not wanting to be governed by a pension schemes timeline of your life,
then maybe just maybe you can say, I had a fucking amazing time as a firefighter for 14 years or
whatever it was. And I didn't choose to leave the universe spat me out there. The virtual butthole
of I would have never left. I think, I think if I didn't get kicked out twice, um, then I would have
never left. Like it, I think that's when it was like, all right, you're not getting a, God was
telling me like, you're not getting what I'm telling you. Like this you're done. Yeah. I had
the same different story, but same, same. It was like, we need you to be loud and luscious outside
the wall. And honestly, that's what we do today. Yeah. You know, like we have, we have the ability
to communicate now and talk to, uh, your, your platform is way bigger than mine, but just like,
you know, talk to thousands of people, you know, you're maybe hundreds of thousands. I don't know
what your numbers, but like, uh, I get to reach a bigger audience now. And, um, I, I enjoy that
because I want to, for people to think that they're more, I had a conversation with a good friend
of mine, orange County. He's a Lieutenant recently. And he was like, Steve, he's like, I don't know
what, cause I was telling him he's more than just a fireman. And he's like, Steve, I don't know what
you're talking about, man. He's like, I'm, he's like, I don't have a, a degree like you. I don't
have a master's degree or anything like that. I was like, I'm not going to say his name, but I was
like, dude, do you think that that's made me any money today? I have a degree. It doesn't do me
crap. It just looks good on a resume. That's it. I mean, I use it to my advantage to be like, well,
I got a degree. You know, I, I play that the, the society role of the game, cause that's what society
thinks is smart people have. But, um, but I tell him, I said, look, he's like, I don't know what I
would do. And I said, okay, have you, you've, you've had a lawn business, right? And he's like, yeah, I,
I used to have a, a lawn business. And I said, I said, all right, dude, let's, let's talk about
this for a second. I said, right now you're a Lieutenant, your daily operation. Okay. And I know
it because it used to be one is you check for making sure staffing is correct. All right. So
you manage staffing. All right. You also manage your pay, the payroll. Okay. You account for every
bit of action they do. You act, you account for all their training. So you implement training. So you
do some level of training throughout the month. Okay. Then you have to fill out reports. All right.
You also command fire scenes, whether it's on a, on an auto entrapment or a house fire until the
next rank gets there, you manage that emergency at, at the very hardest time in the emergency.
The most difficult time is the first responding unit. That first officer in is the most difficult
because there's so much chaos and you're trying to organize and put all the kittens back in the box.
And I said, now let's apply that to lawn business. Okay. You have seven guys at your house right now,
each one of them, you give them a truck. Okay. You take out a small business loan, you get a truck
for every single one with a trailer. You buy a, you buy a separate, a separate mower for each trailer
and a, and a, and a weed eater and a blower and whatever else you need on that trailer. And you say,
go. Okay. Now you've got seven guys working for you. You're managing their payroll. You're managing
their schedule. You're managing their training. If they don't know, cause there's lots of firemen
that don't know how to run a mower. All right. We know that. Okay. You're managing their training.
So right now you have already been given the life skills to manage your own business, but you think
the only thing you know how to do is be a lieutenant or a fireman. And because that's all you know,
and you don't know how to go get the finances because it wasn't taught to you in school.
My master's, my bachelor's, my two associate's degrees. It didn't teach me shit about financing.
It didn't teach me shit about taxes. It didn't teach me anything about running the businesses
that I run today. Okay. It took me getting out of the fire department to go, all right, I got to
figure this out. And now I figured it out. Okay. And now I want others to help, to help others
figure it out. So that's what I do today is help people figure these things out because what did
you just say? We're problem solvers and that's a huge problem. Okay. In an industry that you and I
grew up loving. An industry where in our problems, people possibly were going to die.
Almost no other industry. So if you can manage that. There's a life or death situation every time I get
in a truck. Exactly. You can definitely manage, you know, the plastering business or cabin cabinetry,
or whatever it is that you're going to oversee or, you know, as an entrepreneur or, you know,
managing a team, whatever it is, but we just downplay and it's that imposter syndrome, you know,
oh, I could never. So you already have, you already have, and this is the thing, even with
going back to the work week, someone, a friend of mine who works in the Northeast said it beautifully.
He's like, if you work a 56 hour work week, your department is telling you that you are worth 33.3%
less than the guys that work a 42 hour week in the Northeast.
In fact, boom, same job, same emergency job, you know, same rigs, but they're telling you
that you're a third less valuable. That's why we're, you know, we want you to work 56 hours
for the same salary. Sure. So, you know, again, taking a step out of your own value. I love the
fire service. I mean, if I never left California, I'd still be in Anaheim now, probably still a
Tillaman fireman, to be honest, but a fire medic. But I saw, I saw, I saw a tiller truck the other
day and I was like, ah, you know, I mean, it's still a boyhood dream. You know, I never, I never
intend to go back, but, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a chapter in my life. And that book has
been closed. I'm on to bigger and better things. I have a, I have a different purpose, a different
mission in life. But I mean, it's still, you're look at it like, ah, it was amazing. Yeah.
All right. Well, let's get back to that. So I want to get back to it. So the, the pandemic hits,
give us an overview of, you know, the, the, um, the commands that came down the pipe,
sure. Who you were defending, how that cost you your job. And then we'll pick up and talk about
how in 2024 responders are still losing their jobs to this and what we can do about it.
So, you know, the pandemic came out in March of 2020, and I've talked about this a lot and on many,
many shows, um, uh, national, international shows. And I will tell you that that whole,
that whole year, 2020, we, it was, it was prep and I was seeing guys ask me a lot of questions and
I have no answers as a leader. I had no answers. And I, and what I do is I find the answer and if
I can't find the answer, then I push harder and I push harder and I push harder till I get the
answer. Because at the end of the day, my responsibility is, is the people that I lead,
but also to the, to the brand. Okay. I am, I am, I am trying to protect the brand as well always.
And so 2020 taught me that, okay, there's not a whole lot of information that we're going to get.
All right. 2021 rolls around the mandates roll in now I'm against, I'm against the vaccination
100%. I think if you got it, um, I, I, I hope everything works out for you. Um, I'm completely
going to understand your situation. Um, but I, I hope that I'm wrong. I really do. I, I pray that
I'm wrong because I think it's a poison and unfortunately there are so many people, my family,
my father, uh, his wife, my brother, my sister, they all got it. My sister-in-law, my brother-in-law,
they've all gotten it. Um, my in-laws have all gotten it and I would hate to be right. I don't
want to be right, but I knew at the time and I wasn't against the vaccination at the time. Um,
at the time I just didn't want it for myself. I was on a fitness journey. I was on, um, um, a, a,
a question like why, why are we saying go get this? Like it doesn't make sense. I just want to know
a little bit more on what's going on. Okay. I want to know a little bit more on what is,
what's the data going to show? Okay. No one knew.
Well, the data kept changing and that's, that's, that's another thing too. There was a point where
we were told it was a hundred percent effective and anyone who's worked in medicine knows damn
well that nothing is a hundred percent effective, especially something which they kept saying is a
version of a flu shot, which we all know is like, well, it might get the strain that's coming
through. So we all know that the flu shots are nowhere near a hundred percent effective. So this
is what was so maddening is they had everyone out there in Tyvek suits with no masks and no one had
a fucking problem then. And then you're turning around saying, yeah, you're murderers and you know,
we need to hold you accountable. Actually speaking of which here's a good segue. Talk to me about
what Nicole Wilson said regarding that factor. So, you know, during that, I can't, my dates are,
you know, without it sitting in front of me, you know, the dates are going to be a little bit
blurry, but there was a moment when the mayor in orange County had mandated the vaccination and
mandate get it or get terminated was the original order. And you had to October one. Well, during
that time, there was a large group of firefighters in orange County that pushed back. And I believe
this today. And unfortunately, where firemen are complacent and they forget what happens. And that
whole saying in nine 11, never forget. I can tell you too many people have forgotten and too many
people have forgotten about 2021. Okay. Too many people have forgotten about 2001, 20 years later.
Look at that. Well, look at the lack of support for all the cancer victims. I use that word and
their families, you know, fighting just to get 50 grand to support them. Eric Christie was one of
those for Eric. And I can tell, I can tell you that during that time, about four or 500 of us in
orange County had come out with pushing back. Like we were not going to do this. Some that were getting
vaccinated, some that were not some that, that agreed with our stance of the mandates, not right.
And then there was 70 of us that filed a lawsuit against orange County to say, look, this is an
illegal, this is an illegal mandate. And so when all this was going on, you know, I'm getting
publicized as a political pawn. Okay. Because the governor had brought me, brought me in under his,
his, uh, his wing to kind of push legislation in November. But, um, during that time, Nicole Wilson,
she is, she is currently the current orange County district one commissioner, and she is an attorney
that that is her, that is her profession. That is what she went to school for. Okay. But she looks
over at the County attorney and her comment is so, it's so blatantly disrespectful. And she looks
at the County attorney and she says, so if these firefighters who are unvaccinated go into someone's
home and they get sick from COVID and die, can we hold them liable and responsible for that death
for a wrongful death? And so the County attorney looks at her and says, well, you know, they're,
they're kind of protected by sovereign immunity and being a government, a government official,
a, an elected official, a commissioner in a large, one of the largest, uh, counties in the state of
Florida. And she has the audacity, the, uh, just that blatant disrespect to say that kind of shit.
She's an attorney and she doesn't know this, that there is sovereign immunity for first responders,
but that's not the big thing that, that really caught everybody's attention. And I hope these
firefighters that listen to this, this is how these government elected officials act is she's
caught on camera. This is a public forum. She's caught on camera and she's snapping her fingers
with a face like darn. Now I've got it all over my YouTube pages. I've seen it. So I've got it.
I testify too. Yeah. I've got, I've, I've, I've posted it all on my YouTube pages. Um,
and then she just recently came out, uh, within the last month saying that she supports our
firefighters and our union, our local 20 57. God, I don't know who's running that show over there,
but how on earth do you back a person who wanted to, uh, hold firefighters guilty? And this is the,
the funny thing is the irony to this is the union is actually fighting against the county right now
against those mandates. They're fighting, they're fighting at saying that they should have never
done it, right? That they should have never forced this, uh, this mandate on us. And yet they've,
this individual voted for that mandate and this individual one to hold those individuals,
those firemen responsible. And now you have leadership in the union who is advocating for,
Hey, we want to, we want you as our next commissioner. It just, it's just absurd to me.
And I know it wasn't a vote in the union. It wasn't a membership. It's got, it's, it's got three or
four people that got their hand in the cookie jar and they've been eating from this cookie jar for
years and they continue to do it. They're, they're in bed with all of them and it's unfortunate,
but this is what's going on. Well, just to underline, cause I did a little digging cause I,
people have told me this, but I'm not right. Let me make sure I got my facts straight.
As it came out the other end, it seems like it was the accepted number was the vaccine was 50%
efficacy, which is the same as a placebo. Basically, you know, it's heads or tails.
Is it going to work? Is it not going to work? So what they were doing was calling the previously
unprotected first responders that held the line when everyone hit in their house murderers,
when they refused to get the vaccine that ultimately costs lots of jobs. And I had John
Knox from LAFD on episode eight 70, he just lost his job in November, 2023. I had a Greg
Yacoubian on just the other day, episode nine 60, who's a former LAPD turned attorney who defends
these people that are still being terminated to this day for these vaccine mandates over a
vaccine that had an efficacy of 50, 55%. So this is what's disgusting. If they'd come out of it and
said it was a hundred percent effective, it was basically polio vaccine. And if you got it,
you could eradicate a disease. Then you'd be like, okay, you know, we're starting to see it now,
especially again, the other side of the argument is obviously how long have you been studying this?
Is it going to be dangerous to us? But when it ends up being such low efficacy, and I had,
I've got friends of mine, ICU doctors that have been on and you know, firefighters that have seen
the devastation in those hotspots from, from COVID. And they said, yeah, the vaccinated people seem
to survive. So it seemed to at least reduce the symptoms, but that's completely different than
you didn't take that vaccine. Therefore you're a murderer and I'm going to take you a job.
So this is what's disgusting in 2024 is they're still chasing responders jobs and then ruining
lives and careers over a vaccine that ultimately didn't have that, didn't have that efficacy.
And as we hear now, the masks, the distances, Oh, you know what? I kind of made it up. No
fucking shit because you and I, every year, and above the rainbow, there's a pot of gold.
And you know what I mean? And you're doing your bowing and you're like, and you're telling me
that your grandmother's knitted mask was, was okay. So for fuck's sake, of course we knew this
every other bit. And everyone, no matter who they are said, when it first came out, we were worried.
Everyone was worried by the time you got to three or four weeks in and that, you know,
all the data started coming in as far as just, you know, what were we actually seeing?
Yeah. The doom and gloom numbers were a lot less. Every single life loss was tragic,
but it wasn't to the magnitude. And what we did to our children when actually they were pretty much
safe from COVID-19, you know, what we did to the workforce when they were healthy, we should have
protected the vulnerable and kept us with all the support to be out there keeping the world running,
you know? So this is what's so disgusting. I apologize for the monologue, but when you look
at it now in 2024 as eyes, there was no accountability for all the fucking horrendous leadership decisions.
And the fact that they are still trying to take jobs now with that information, that should be,
that should be fucking stopped today. That is disgusting.
I see it. And what we're seeing in our society is just they're doubling down on everything they're
doing and they're blatant. They're being obvious about it. It's not hidden anymore. They're just
out in the open. But the problem is, is no one wants to challenge it. No one wants to say anything.
Everybody wants to collect their paycheck every two weeks because they don't want to be, I use it. I
talk about it in my book that my name is a verb. Okay. Don't want to be Steve Davis because, you
know, the problem is, is, you know, I was, I wasn't a rogue chief officer. I was looking after my,
my crew and I was looking after the brand and I wasn't stepping out of line to be disrespectful.
I wasn't stepping out of line to just be an asshole. I was, I was actively seeking leadership.
I was actively seeking guidance because what I'm looking at is I'm realizing that you are
now violating people's civil rights. You are violating, you are, you're violating policy
and, and this is going to come out and you all should be held accountable. Every single person
that put their name on a piece of paper or signature on the, on the, on a paper, writing someone up,
they should be held accountable 100%. And it is what it is. I did not do it. And for that,
I stand on top of the Hill. It is the Hill I die on, but everybody that did not, that, that signed
their name to that sheet of paper, you should be held accountable. And in some cases you should
lose your job. You should lose your pension. You should lose everything in your career. Like I have.
Okay. And I want that to be known because it's not right for these people to have done these
things. And I'm not just talking here in Orange County, I'm talking worldwide.
Just to interrupt, but repeat that because I know this is true. The responders that were terminated
over the vaccine mandates lost their pensions as well. Um, not everybody. I didn't lose mine.
Okay. So I think John did. There are people that lost theirs. Yeah. Um, it depends on state
jurisdiction. Um, that's fucking disgusting. It is disgusting. The guys in Australia that you
connected me with years ago, they lost their stuff. Um, physicians have lost their everything.
And so this is, this is what's sickening. And, and I think that this is, this is very important
because these people that sign their names on that dotted line to say, Hey, we're going to terminate
you. You should be held accountable. You should lose everything. You should try to climb out of
the pit of hell. You should climb out of, out of, out of, out of this ladder. See if somebody comes
and rescues you. Okay. Cause you did something evil, something wrong. I, I really believe that
the people, this is modern day, uh, 1940s Germany. It, we are 100% living in it and we are taking
people's lives through it, through, through this type of stuff. And I, I just, it's, it's saddening,
but, um, yeah, no, the, the reason I, the reason I stood that, that ground was, was mainly because
I wanted to protect the brand. I wanted to make sure that, uh, the guys, Hey, we didn't violate
their civil rights. And I was told to do it or else. And honestly, I didn't think I'd lose my job.
I didn't think I'd lose my career, my passion, my, my everything I lost. I lost over probably
1500 hours of sick time that I'll never get back. You know, uh, I lost personal holidays that I'll
never get back. Okay. Um, I lost a career. I lost promotional opportunities. I, I look, my, my name
is known around this, this, this town. Okay. You think people are hiring the rogue chief officer?
No, no, not that I want it anyways, but, um, but my point is, is that, you know, it's, it was all
made up. It's lies and they stand by it today and they're still going after people. They're
going to continue going back because everybody that's got their job is living a comfort life
of two weeks at getting a paycheck while I get mandated. But I, at least I get paid. You know,
I get, I can work one shift and I could probably make three, 400 bucks in that shift. That's good
money. I can, I can take care of my boat, you know, that I haven't taken out in months.
Yeah. I mean, like I said, this is the thing when they were talking about, you know,
this is for the health of the people, it goes back to that. Well, what have you done to make
people healthy? And they didn't that. So you can't tell me this is for the health because otherwise
we would emerge in 20, late 22, early 23 and the schools will have, you know,
men and women behind the counter making real food, just like we used to in school houses.
The PE programs would be back. The local farmers would be like, wow, you know, I just got the
subsidy now I'm going to grow a lot more organic food. I don't have to worry about, you know,
the bottlenecks of the slaughterhouses or the trucking industry, because you'll have all these
farms around Ocala that are making food for the local everything. You know what I mean? Nothing,
none of that. You know, it's funny. I was just in Germany and with my family and we were vacationing
for a while, almost a month and we ended up, you know, having the bread at a bakery and you could
buy a loaf of bread at one of the bakeries or, you know, little baguettes or whatever little
little small ones. And after a day it turns into a crouton. Like it's hard as a rock. Like,
that's what bread's supposed to do. That's what bread's supposed to do. You go to the local bakery
here at Publix and I love Publix bread, but it'll last a week, right? It'll last a week. And then
after a week, then it starts to mold. It doesn't turn into a crouton. It turns into mold. And so
you, you have to ask yourself, what's in our food here? What's different there? And this is not just
Germany. This is England. Even the, yeah, if you look at English food standards are a lot higher
than here. 100%. And that's sad. That's real sad. Now you look at it, English chicken breast. It
doesn't look like it can bench 400 like ours do here. You know what I mean? You can't have all the
food coloring. I remember being a kid and there was a thing called E numbers and that was all the
preservatives and colorings. And they realized that we were bouncing off the walls. And it was
that stuff that was causing it. My kids don't drink anything but water and milk. Okay. They'll
once in a while I'll give them, if we out for dinner or something, I'll give them a lemonade.
I'll reward them. And then the other thing too is like after a soccer game, they might have a juice
box. Okay. But all the, all the parents for after soccer parties, power aid, Gatorade, and my kids
know that I got you a Gatorade. I throw it away. I don't drink that crap, but they always bring it
to me for me to have. But they don't drink that stuff. But I can tell you that when you talk about
bouncing off the walls, I 100% notice it because my kids get treated to like, I don't deprive them
of the goodies. Okay. They get, they get the good stuff too, but I notice a difference because
they're not having it on a regular basis. Like most, most children do the cereals. Yeah. But when
they get it, it's a, it's a next level kind of thing. I sometimes I wish I was a younger guy
to keep up, but yeah, you notice it. You notice it. And, and it's funny because we, we make this
the ADHD. I honestly think it's just like kids are just bouncing off the walls is because they're
loaded full of sugar. Yeah. 100%. I'll never forget. I worked on a summer camp. And it was the
first year, which was 1994 and it was American summer camp as an exchange program with like
post post kind of college university, you know, graduates or students. And the infirmary, like
there was a lot of English people there. So one of the nurse was one of my friends. And I remember
going up there and there was a line all the way outside. And I'm like, what the what's going on?
Is it food poisoning or, you know, diarrhea going around with it? And she's like, no, this is the
they're here for their Ritalin. I'm like, what's Ritalin? He goes for ADHD or ADD. It was ADD.
Yeah. I'm like, well, what's ADD? And she told me, and I shit you not. I mean, this wasn't a huge
camp. There was 40 kids lining up for these damn medications and the camp was actually the antidote
for it. I did all the sports and water sports and you know, you come down and swim and you know,
water ski for an hour. You're not going to need your Ritalin anymore. You know, you've been in
the ocean. I mean, the, the, the lake water and the sunshine and, but it's absolutely, you look at
the diet, you look at Lunchables and all these god awful things that are in the stores and you know,
and then you throw in devices and then throw in a pandemic where you tell kids don't do anything
for two years. Then you kick these seniors out of high school and like, what's wrong with you? Go
get a job. You know, these poor fucking children we've created. And again, it's environment. We
talked about, you know, the obesity crisis isn't just the individual, it's the environment that
they're in. We have created an environment that sets up mental ill health and anxiety and ADD.
And that's what you're seeing in today. Like so many people are, are strung out on, on,
on social media, making these Tik TOK videos, these Instagram posts, all these different things.
And you wonder how did they get here? Well, it was just the analogy I use sometimes and I use it in a
different, a different kind of a explanation, but it's almost taking like a leaky faucet,
the leaky faucet, you know, it drips. If you were to put a cup there and just watch it drip, drip,
drip, really, if it's one every five or six seconds, it's going to take forever for it to
load that glass, to fill that glass. And you're going to think, man, this is taking forever.
But if you walk away for a few hours, you're going to notice that it's okay. It's filled up.
But if you walk away for a little bit more, you might, you're not going to notice it. If you're
just watching it fill up. But if you walk away for a little bit, then you started to overflow.
And so it's kind of the same, it's kind of same concept in a way is, is that's what's been going
on in our society where they've added a little bit here, a little bit here, change, change the law
here. Oh, it's just two weeks. Oh, it's just a, it's just a mask. Oh, it's just a vaccination.
Oh, it's just a mandate, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's just, this is just that. Oh, it's just,
you know, a little bit of sugar. Oh, it's just a Gatorade, a sports drink, you know, with crap ton
of sugar. Oh, it's just a soda. Like my kids don't drink soda. My son hates it. Hates the bubbles.
Thank God you can't stand carbonation. So I won the lottery there. Lemonade is actually the only
drink. Yeah. Lemonade is, is, and there's sometimes lemonade is, is not the best either, but it's a,
it's a nice little refreshing treat for, you know, my young kids. Yeah. Every now and again,
they drink water. The ingredients are pretty straightforward though. Lemon, well, depending
on where you go, but yes, you can, you can get it. You can, you can manage it. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Well then, so that was kind of the journey, you know, took you to when we sat down two years ago.
So firstly, walk me through the impact on your family, on you mentally, of finding yourself
outside minus sick time, paid holidays, salary, healthcare, et cetera, et cetera. And then walk
me through up to today, what have been the highs, what have been the lows? Well, so, you know,
leaving, being forcefully pulled out of Orange County, removed from that department. I honestly
didn't think I was going to get terminated. I thought that I'd get suspended at most, you know,
they, they, they, they fired me for misconduct and subordination because I refuse to write people up
is essentially what it is over the mandate, over the mandates. And you didn't get the vaccination.
You're supposed to get written up, but you had a religious exemption was where my stance was.
There was people who had religious exemptions and because they had a religious exemption,
because they had medical exemptions, I recognize these things. There was some individuals who had
gotten their vaccination and I seen their cards and they were on the list. And I addressed that
with my supervisors and they terminated me because I refused to write those people up.
So to make that really clear for everybody that's listening, that may have heard my,
that are hearing my story for the first time, you were on a list and you had a religious exemption.
You were on a list and had a medical exemption. You were on a list and actually turned in your
vaccination card. And my responsibility as the chief officer was to write you up. Okay. Now that
can affect your training or that could affect your, your promotions in the future. That could affect
your transfer rights. There's some other things too. Okay. When I came forward and did this, they,
they sent me home, suspended me. And then two weeks later, they, they fired me. I thought I would get
suspended. The funny thing is, is there's a documented records evidence of firefighters
striking patients while restrained by handcuffs caught on video. Uh, he kept his job for five
months, then terminated, got his job, bought back six months later, just did a public records
request. Now this individual is sitting at the maintenance. He's not even working on the truck
anymore. So, and there's no record of discipline. So why is he nodding on that? Not on the truck now,
why is he back at maintenance? So there's these inconsistencies with terminating people with
discipline. There was another, there's another, a lieutenant who was, um, um,
domestic violence arrested, put in jail for the weekend, got out, got it, got, uh, got a 36 hour,
um, suspension. So two individuals that I just said, something with violent crime, and I should
say crime, but a violent activity, okay. An aggressive activity. They put their hands on
somebody and they, one didn't lose his job for five months, got it back. The other only got
suspended. I literally just said, Hey, look at this list. It's incorrect. We shouldn't be writing
these people up. Do it anyways is what they tell me. And I said, no. And because I said no, I lost
my career. So with that being said, you know, being pulled out of a fire service, uh, so abruptly,
um, it did change everything because, you know, the only thing I knew, I was a fireman. That's the
only thing I knew. Just like that lieutenant I was saying earlier, I, I'm not, I was getting ready to
graduate with my masters, but I was like, I don't know anything else. Like this is all I know. What
can I do? Fortunately, you know, I had a, um, a department that picked me up in 13 days. So I
already knew that I was, I was good. Um, I had, I had two months that I had to figure out, uh,
two and a half months that I had to figure out, you know, income. Um, actually I guess three months
because you don't get paid for two weeks once you get picked up somewhere. But so, but so three
months I had to figure out what was income. Now I've been a pretty good planner. So I had stuff in
savings. Um, and then, um, I had a lot of people that supported me at the time and came out and,
uh, there was some, uh, some crowdfunding that gave me a little bit of money that, that, that was able
to get me through the holidays. Uh, so God, God look after me now. I'll tell you, uh, I said it
then. And I think, uh, I said it then and I say today, you know, I think God's my plan was to
finish my 25, 30 years in Orange County, that that's not God's plan. He closed that door,
opened up another plan, opened up another door and another fire service, a fire department.
I went to that fire department. I think he gave me that job because I was there for a year and a
half before I got forced out again. And I was there for a year and a half. And, um, I think he
gave me that job to give me closure because I love the fire department so much, uh, that I,
I could not let it go. Like I, I turned down a job, um, for a division chief position in Lake County.
I turned down a job for 250 a year, um, because I had to be a fireman. I had to be a fireman.
And I turned this job down. I got, when I, when I, when I got terminated from Orange County,
I got publicized with the governor, with attorneys, with, with the attorney general,
with all kinds of politicians at local, uh, national. Okay. I was on several national, um,
um, media, um, um, uh, shows and, um, I got, I got picked up, I interviewed for a position
and the owner of the company says, yeah, this is what your salary will be $250,000. Tell me
that that's not a good amount of money. That's a lot of money.
It's a little bit more than they made in Orange County.
I only made, I made about 150 in Orange County. Okay. But that's working a crap ton of overtime.
Okay. But I made 50 and that was during the medic crisis. I put myself through medic school here.
They wouldn't even give me tuition reimbursement. Wow. And I actually lost money over those five
years. Cause over those five years is when that bull prick governor that we had before, Rick,
whatever his name was, um, he, uh, he made the pension smaller. So I actually made less money
five years than when I got hired as a new guy. Cause the medic doesn't count. I put myself
through that got zero help. So yeah, I made less money. So that was, yeah. So yeah. 250 is about
five times what I've times now. Now, granted I made, I made about 150 when I was a battalion.
Okay. But I was working tons of overtime. I was working dive team. I was working maintenance.
I was working, uh, stuff for the hurricanes, deploy, getting things ready for deployment.
So I was constantly working. Okay. I wasn't at home with my family. So I,
yes, the 150 is a lot of money and it was, but, um, I was gone a lot and I had two young kids.
I had a wife, I have a family, you know? Um, but I, I sat at an interview for this position
and the owner, he said he was going to, this is what he was going to, this is my salary is going
to be. And I sat there and I said, listen, um, I really do appreciate the offer. I said, I've got
an interview next week, um, for a, uh, position. And, um, it looks like I'm going to get, it was
the callback. Uh, I'd already interviewed, but it was a callback. And I said, I really want to make
sure that I'm not, that I don't have this spot. And I knew that I wasn't going to make the money.
Like it advertised for less than a hundred thousand. Okay. I made a hundred four, um,
after the first year. Um, so he goes, he looked at me like I was crazy and he's like, he's like,
dude, I'm offering you double, double and a half of that. And I'm like, I know I said,
and I, and I hope this job is still available after next Tuesday. And on Tuesday I got the
phone call. I got accepted as the next division chief there. And I took the position and I called
that guy up and I said, I really do appreciate your time for, for believing in me, but you know,
this is where I'm supposed to be. And, uh, I believe that because, uh, that that's the door.
I think God kind of like said, well, this is, I'm giving you a chance to really make some money,
but it's out of the fire service. But I wasn't ready to give it up. Like it was still a passion,
but I needed another year and a half to kind of get closure. The time that I had in Lake County
was an amazing time. I got to accomplish a many, many, many things. Um, my resume, I built it up
even bigger while I was there. Um, but the writing was on the wall. I, I saw it. I saw the same
nonsense. I saw the same, same, uh, people in the positions of authority that were doing the same
dictating of these, of these, these illegal unlawful things. And I just didn't want to be a part of
it anymore. And that's when I knew I had to leave. And, um, I ended up walking away that, um, about
a year and a half after that, the job that you were offered to 54, was that an industry where
you were making the world better? Because where I see, yeah, no. So where I see a lot of people
struggle in their transition is they go for the money, but then they realize that they were a
selfless servant in uniform and you can serve in a thousand different ways. I would argue that my
books and the podcast is serving, but I'm not wearing a badge anymore, but that's why I think
about it when I wake up and I think about it before I go to sleep, you know, it's still that
calling, but it's interesting how people are offered money, but if they're our kind of people,
that doesn't sway you. It might temporarily. And then you wonder why you're so fucking miserable
because you've got to find a way of serving that of course will pay the bills, but service is the
first currency, not the dollar. Yep. Money, money doesn't drive me. I like money and I do very well
right now. I just quoted just several numbers. I'm doing much more than that, but, um, and God has
blessed me, but, um, with those things, but money's not my drive. You know, I like it. It helps me out.
You know, it gives, it gives me financial freedom. It gives me, it gives me opportunity for so many
different things. I can travel. I can take my family wherever I want, whenever I want.
I have that control. I have the control. I make the rules. I, and, and what I do today is I serve,
I still serve. Um, I serve others in other ways. I think I have a bigger platform. Now I have a
bigger opportunity. I'm not see where orange County messed up is they, they chose the wrong person
to do what they did. Anybody else, anybody else would have gotten their whole and died, found
something else, and then just lived on their life. Anybody else, but me, I'm going to say something.
Okay. If you had kept me on payroll, you would have kept those chains around my wrists around
my cause I would have still been wanting my two week paycheck, right? I would have still had,
I freaking hate these guys, but I would have still been fighting like internally, but I couldn't say
anything, but they would have still had control over me. The fact that they let me go, they
terminated my position only made my voice stronger. Okay. It only made me more like, okay, I did
something right because they had to get rid of me. What they did was to say, let's see if anybody
else. And I referred to it earlier as my name's a verb. No one wants to be Steve Davis. That's why
they don't get out of line. They won't say something because if they say something, the fear is they're
going to lose it all. Like I did now, a lot of people said, Oh, I'm glad to see you land on your
feet. Well, I never left my feet. Like I hear people tell me that all the time. I never left
my feet. I was always on my foot. I was still walking. I might've got pushed back a little bit,
but I was, I'd never left my feet. And, but yeah, I mean, I ended up, I ended up getting out of the
fire service last June. I'm doing, I'm doing a lot better now, but I'm serving, I'm serving in another,
another way. What industry do you find yourself in that you are doing financially well now? Well,
I do, I help people with finances. So that's, that's one thing I do now. I help, I was kind
of telling you how I kind of guide people into saying, thinking that they're more than what,
something else. Okay. So I'm teaching those things. I'm teaching leadership skills,
financing, stuff like that. And my bigger, my bigger thing that that's really more of my service.
Okay. So is, is my raising office project. So my business partner and I, we started this company
a couple of years ago and it's really about teaching the next generation, raising the next
generation of leaders, not followers. So it's, it's really honing in on our young men and women
to teach them what's right and wrong, to stand up for something, to challenge what doesn't seem
right. So many people will walk by and see something wrong and not say a single thing.
You see these social experiments on the, on a social media all the time, where there'll be
people walking around in a busy city and a young kid is pulled into a dark alleyway by some, and
they're screaming and not one person's does anything. They stay on their phone and they
continue walking. Okay. And that's, and that's kind of what we're doing today is people are not,
are not, they don't understand these things. And so what, what the raising office project teaches,
one, it's about parents being more engaged and involved with their kids. Okay. Let's not put them
on a cell phone. Let's not put them in front of the TV. Let's be active. Let's get out there and
throw the football, throw the kick, the soccer ball. Okay. Run around, have a good time play.
Okay. Go on long walks, teach them. Okay. I mean, I'm doing a meet the teacher yesterday,
my second grader, he just got into second grade two days ago and she's like, um, yeah, your son
was asking about multiplication tables. Like when did we start that? Because they're working on
addition and subtraction now. And I don't know what's normal in that grade, but when I asked her,
I said, well, when do you guys start doing multiplication? He says in the fourth period,
our fourth part of the school year. So they're not going to touch it till the end, almost third
grade for him. But my son already knows all that because he's got an older brother and, and we will
literally be riding around in our, in the truck and I'll go and they'll ask me, Hey, what's nine
times nine, what's seven times seven. And they're both shooting the answers off. Okay. And it, and
it's kind of a cool, so like that's a cool thing, but those are some of the games that we play,
you know, some of the games that I play with both my kids is monopoly. I talk about that all the
time. I think monopoly is one of the best games, uh, board games out there. And I think it's important
for parents to do these things is you put a monopoly board on the table and you teach the
kids are you roll the dice and you go around the board. Once you pass this right here, you get
another $200. That is life. Every two weeks you're passing go. That is your business. That is, that is
being an employee. You're going around the board doing that. Those of us that are buying properties
are the entrepreneurs. That's what I am. Now I've stepped out of the, get my paycheck every two
weeks and passing go. I'm the entrepreneur that's buying up land. I'm the entrepreneur that's
putting properties down. Now I'm charging you. Now I'm getting cashflow constantly.
So my sons are learning the game of monopoly. They're learning the game of like, this is how
life is. I can go around the board your entire life and just collect that to that paycheck every
month, every month you get a paycheck, but you're not ever going to get ahead. You're always going
to live paycheck to paycheck because you're not taking the risk. I tell people about taking risk
today. Like I take risk today. Okay. When I was in the fire service, I was not afraid of going into
a fire and saving someone's life. Now I never had a sleeve like that. All I say, I, I save more
people's life with the patch on my shoulder than the brass on my collar. Okay. And I, I, I climbed
up to the third in command of a department division chief, a department, and I save more people with
the paramedic patch than I did with my rank. Okay. Now, now my job is to steer people in a leadership
role outside of the fire service to say, Hey, look, you're more than just a insert blank. Okay.
And that's, that's kind of what I do now. So I'm serving in a community in that search. I want
people to be better parents. I want kids to, to, to respect things, you know, respect their elders,
respect their teachers, respect, you know, their coaches, you know, there's so much influence out
there. And if we don't take advantage of those things, coaches taking advantage of the opportunity
to coach young men and women as, as a soccer coach or a football coach or a cheerleading coach or a
track coach or whatever it is, you know, taking that opportunity. And that's what I do today.
That's my passion now. So love it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny. I had a, I had a really
bizarre encounter a few days ago at Publix. Funny enough, I was coming up shopping as a pleasure.
That is, that's actually, I love that place. Um, but my dad worked there. He used to always said,
um, uh, yeah, I work at Publix. We're shopping as a pleasure and working as a bitch.
That's his saying. So, I mean, I never worked there, but I, I can hear it. Yeah. I, I enjoy
shopping there. I can imagine being in the meat department for decades. It gets a little tiresome,
but yeah. So I see this car shoot out across 200 is the 200 is a three lane, 50 mile an hour road,
um, each way and comes out of this dealership flies across like one shoots out. Then this other one
comes almost hits the first one. Then he cuts in anyway. I I'm, you know, like quarter of a mile
back. So then I pull into Publix and then the same car is there. He fricking does a fricking donut
from the, you know, and there's people four spaces up in a woman putting our groceries away and stuff.
And then does, you know, screeching tires and pulls past me and I throw my hands up instinctively,
like, what the fuck you doing? Cause I already saw what you did back there. And you always kill
people and he stops and he gets out of his car. I'm like, Oh fuck, here we go. So anyway, he walks
over to me, you know, what's your problem, man? I said, look, I'm, I was a firefighter. I said,
I see what happens when people drive like you drive. I said, people get hurt or people fucking
get killed. So that's why I'm throwing my hands up. I saw you cut across all the traffic before,
you know, you know, you almost hit someone. If you keep driving like this, you are going to hit
someone. And this guy, and he was a black bloke looked like he worked out probably, you know,
about our age or my age. Um, you know, and he reached out his arm and he shook my hand and he
said, thank you. So someone needed to check. He was probably having a bad day. You know what I mean?
Now I could also have been shot on the spot. This is America. So it could have been a much
worse story, but the point was, and I had a similar thing. There was a kid terrorizing our
neighborhood of about a year ago now, young kid. And, you know, on the Facebook chat here, they're
like, oh, you know, they need to do this. They need to do that. They need to put speed bumps in
like, well, maybe someone needs to talk to his fucking dad. So anyway, with the help of a couple
of them, they figured out who he was. I found a dad, unusual last name works in a local dealership,
plunked my ass in front of him in his office and said, is this your kid? You know, showed him a
picture of the same car. And he immediately called his wife. They took the keys from the kid.
Didn't see him for like three, four months. And now that kid drives with utmost respect. And he's
even waved to me before I have zero animosity kudos to you for having the humility to actually
go, you know what? I was driving like a little asshole and I'm going to, I'm going to stop
doing that. Cause I mean, literally he almost wiped out in front of the bus stop when the kids
were there. Yeah. 60 and a 30. That's the kind of driving it was. And all it took was just you
actually stepping up and saying, I'm going to be part of the solution. Yeah. And too many people
will turn their head. Yeah. So back to your ignoring the alleyway. And that's obviously an
extremes, you know, there's lots of people that would have beat the shit out of that person.
But if we just stop thinking that everyone is going to be that one psychotic person with a gun,
that everyone's too scared to do anything. And we just all come together and say, you need to stop
driving fast in our neighborhood or whatever the thing is, you know, and then the majority is going
to be behind that person. You've changed, you've changed this country completely. But if it's just,
I've got everyone else, how do you get the masses to, you need to stop dividing the country for a
start left and right. We do that. We do that every single day. Um, my brother and I don't agree a lot
agree a lot on politics. And yesterday we talked on the phone. It was, it was, uh, I don't say
amazing. It was, it was brutal. Uh, it was five and a half hours. We talked on the phone and I hadn't
been on a phone like that since I was probably in high school with somebody, but five and a half
hours, we talked on the phone nonstop and it was about politics. And we have, we have 100% difference
in politics and it's okay. And I told him, man, I love you to death. I said, but you're wrong,
you know, and he tells me, I love you to death, but you're wrong. And it is what it is. And, but
at the end of the day, I said to him and, and with, and with, um, you know, a very calm, um,
collected voice, it's like, um, we're not going to agree on everything, but it's, that's okay.
You know, it's okay to, to, but us having this conversation is, is important. You know, my, my
wife, um, and her sister got into a, an argument while we're in Germany. And again, two different
sides of the coin. Okay. Um, we believe my wife and I align, okay. And, um, our siblings, they're
on the same, they align. Okay. And, um, but they got in an argument and they weren't talking for
like a solid day, maybe a day and a half. And, um, I went to her sister and I said, listen, I said,
listen, um, you and I don't agree on, on, on, on a lot of things. She's, uh, she, she does stuff with
like a doesn't believe in, uh, eating meat and stuff like that. So that was a conversation too.
But, um, I said, you're never going to convince me of this and I'm never going to convince you
of this, but that's okay. Okay. We're still family. Okay. That's your sister. Okay. It's your only
sister. Okay. So those are things that like, let's not waste time fighting about something so stupid.
Like we can talk about it if we just stay cool. Like my brother got a little heated and loud and
I got a little heated and loud, but at the end of the night, we're still laughing and making jokes.
And this morning he's calling me again. And I'm like, I'm not talking to you doing that right now.
Like I'm done with you. Uh, but, um, but I think that's where our, our world needs to come to,
you know, especially this country, there's, uh, you know, it's a good thing. I'm melting pot, um,
that we have accepted. Um, the one thing I don't like about, like when I was in Germany, it is
becoming a melting pot in Europe. I personally don't like it because when I go to Europe, I want
to see German culture. Okay. I don't want to see Italian culture. If I go to Italy, I want to see
Italian culture. I don't want to see German culture. Okay. And there's been an influx of, um, um,
refugees. And so it's changing the dynamics of the cultures. And, um, I like that. I think for our
country, you know, because we are a melting pot is it's, it's different here. Okay. But with that,
everybody has different beliefs, different, um, stances on different things. And with that,
it also creates that division because we align with what you've said it several times, a tribe.
So if I'm of Muslim faith, I'm going to align with that tribe of Christian faith with that,
with Jewish, with that, that's religion. If we're talking, um, ethnic background, that's another
tribe that we associate ourselves with. But, but then we work all together in a really diverse
group and we have to get along. And I think that we can get along if people have these conversations.
What are the three things that they, that we are told never to talk about in the fire department?
Politics, religion, and your salary. Three things. You hit it right on the head.
You hit it right on the head. Politics, religion, and money. Why is that? Well, if we talk about
money, we're net, if we don't talk about money, we're never going to get better at it. Okay. Let
me, let me expand on that a little bit. So when I became a lieutenant, I didn't just one day
become a lieutenant. I had to study for it. I had to train for it. And I had to ask my lieutenant,
Hey, how do you become a lieutenant? Same thing as a chief officer. Okay. I took the captain's test.
Same thing as a captain. Do you need any leadership classes? No, no, no. Just take the officer class.
You don't need to actually learn how to lead. That's true. That's true. Some people just fall
into the position, but you know, uh, and DI is a real thing. Um, but the way you become a paramedic,
you had to figure out how do I get to school? Okay. Where do I apply? How do I become a squad tech?
How do I become a truckie? How to become a diver? You ask somebody. Okay. So we don't talk about
those three things. So finances, how am I ever going to get better at becoming financially free?
If I don't talk about it, if I never talk about money, if I never talk about bettering myself in
the financial world, money is not the root of, I know they say money is the root of all evil. No,
money is a tool. Okay. If you make it a idol, then now it's the evil. Okay. Greed is the root of all
evil, not money. Greed is the same way that, you know, a gun can sure get dinner on a table or
slaughter a bunch of kids. Sure. Yeah. So, so when we talk about finances at the dinner table,
okay. And that's where I sit at a different table today is, is you're improving yourself financially.
And I think that's an important thing. The other thing is religion. Okay. Spiritually, we need to,
we need to improve ourselves. Okay. So we need to talk about, we need to talk about religion. If
you're sitting across the table from me and you're of Muslim religion and I'm of Christian
religion, there's a lot of similarities in those religions, believe it or not. Actually, we're more
online together than the Jews, than us, us, the Jews, believe it or not. But my point being is that
there's nothing wrong with people from other cultures and religions. We just have to, let's,
let's get to know them. I had a, I had a lady take me home from the airport last year. And she was
of Muslim faith from Morocco and she was actually studying the Christian religion. She had some
questions for me. I was unable to answer. I had to call a friend, you know, but the conversation
with her was just an amazing, it was such a delight, you know, listening to her talk and,
and sharing with her my side of the story, you know, my religion and her hearing her story.
And it's like, you know, these are good, there are good people. There are good people of, of diff,
there are good people in different races. Okay. I think for the majority, most people are good.
I think, I think it majority of people want what's right and want to do good. There are evils in this
world. Okay. And that it's easier to pull someone down. It's easier to be negative. It's easier to
be to, to, to show that evil side and bring people over than to show them the positive and the good
side. But I believe for the most part, people are good. And I think if you just sit here and talk
with people and converse with them and say, you know, let me hear more about Judaism. Let me hear
more about Buddhists. Let me hear more about Dow or, or, or, or Muslim. Okay. Let me, let me open
my mind to that. Okay. I think that we'd get along better. So that's two things that we don't talk
about the dinner table. The other thing is politics. That's huge right now. Okay. Because our country
is being divided based on politics. And I can tell you that I had this conversation for five hours
last night with my brother. It didn't get nowhere. And we talked for five and a half hours. And I can
tell you that it's just something that you have to take the time to get to know, to, to understand
your net. You may never keep a calm collected head and then just try to try to explain your position
best you can. And if you don't understand or if you, and that other person doesn't understand,
come to an agreement that it's not ever going to happen, but at least you can hear it. So.
Yeah. What's funny is almost a thousand interviews now, as you can imagine, I've had people that are
super right leaning, super left leaning, most people closer to the middle. I've had all walks
of life as far as faith, sexuality. And the answer is, and I can tell you this from a, from an
interviewer's perspective, and most of the conversations are a couple of hours. So these
are long form talks. If you start in the middle with someone, regardless of their background,
and then you kind of move yourselves out and then you kind of find the outer borders and you explore
it a little bit. Okay. We'll go back in the middle again. You can have a phenomenal conversation with
almost everyone because if you sit with someone and saying, do you like, you know, the massive
beast in this country, do you like all your tax dollars going to treating all those sick people?
Do you like the fact that your kids have to worry about being murdered in their classroom?
Do you like the fact that, you know, our firefighters are dropping dead left, right and center. You know
what I mean? Every normal person is going to be like, no, no, no, we do need to fix that.
Doesn't matter if you, if you're blue or, you know, yellow, whatever fucking color your
organization aligns with, you're a human being. And so when you, what you find is as you go out,
the differences are small. And more often than not, like you said, with the diverse tapestry of
cultures in this country, if you actually see the humanity in each other, those differences become
beautiful. That is the, you know, the pastel colors of, of America. But if you immediately go,
you're the reason that slavery happened to Davis in 2024 or whatever, whatever the other side.
And again, ironically, if you look at pretty much every horrible thing that's happened in human
history, it's a few tyrants, not the entire population. I would argue that not every German
figured out, you know, thought that what was happening under their flag is actually happening,
especially as it was happening in different countries usually. So, you know, does that
forgive what happened? Absolutely not. But is every German to blame or every Japanese? No,
absolutely not. So this is the problem is that most people, I'm sure most Russians couldn't give a
fucking rat's ass about going into the Ukraine. They just want to watch their kids go to school,
work their job, keep a roof over their head. You know, so this is what we need to do. This
divisiveness that I see in politics. You know, I hate politics, like the debates,
debates are pointless. No one ever goes, Oh, you know what, you're absolutely right. I'm going to
change my mind now. No, but a long form conversation where you start in the middle. Imagine if
let's take two good leaders, if RFK and Tulsi Gabbard were the two candidates we really got
to choose from, and they sat down and they said, let's talk about the obesity crisis. Let's talk
about health care. Let's talk about school safety. Let's talk about the borders. You know, let's
secure the borders, but let's also give those people that have been hardworking Americans that
came in illegally a break. They've proven themselves for X amount of years. Let's have a
kind of system where, you know, if they haven't committed crimes and they've just been in a
workforce that we legalize them, get them to pay tax and we keep them here. As they create a family,
whatever that middle ground is, then most people will be like, Oh shit, whoever wins, I'm going to
be happy with. Like, she's my favorite. He's my favorite because we've never had a woman president.
You mentioned those two, but what are the, what about the two that are, that are currently running
for the top position? We could use it for those two. Yeah, but they're not that kind of person.
But my point, my point, my point being is just, just to go with what you're kind of suggesting is
like, it's not a bad idea, you know, but, but it's not just them. It's everybody in Congress.
It's everybody in the Senate. Like those hundreds of men and women in those seats have to do it too.
If you've watched any of those, and I know you have, but you watch those things and all it is,
is, is grandstanding most of the time for the, for the cameras. Yeah. And it's talking about the
other person. This is what I loved about Tulsi when she first kind of came up was this is what
we stand for. So I like RFK. This is what we need to change the vaccines, the, you know,
the forever chemicals, the things that he stood for, for decades. Like we know, regardless of the,
whatever party they hail from this person has stood by, even Bernie Sanders, everyone gives him a lot
of shit. Bernie has said the same thing for a long fucking time. So kudos for him for at least being
having the backbone to be the same. And I think he comes from a very altruistic place. I think he's
misunderstood. I think a lot of the money, if you actually proactively fix healthcare, for example,
you're like, Oh shit, there's loads of money for school now. You know what I mean? So there's even
that, but that aside, this is exactly that our system is broken where, as we said, a good leader
has humility and is a servant leader. And we don't have that anywhere, you know, and the ones that
are, they get squashed. So this is the issue is, and I always say, it's like working in a turd
factory and expecting a cupcake until you change the fucking factory. Why are you surprised that
the person who's running for president is a, is an asshole with a terrible history. And now you have
taken them, you know, and using taxpayers money to put them through a court system because big surprise,
they're not a human being. And I'm not saying you have to be an angel, just create a system
that brings the good people. So you want candidate A, I want candidate B, your candidate wins this
year. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm still happy because that's still a good person. We don't have
that. It's divided down the middle. And if your person doesn't win, then America's ruined for
four years. I don't remember, you know, obviously we're much younger. You're a little bit, a couple
years older than I am, but, um, uh, I don't remember some of the previous presidents and I, I look back
and I, I don't think I could support them today, but, but I don't remember some of the stuff that's
going on today. Then now again, I was much younger, but they were particular at least they could string
a sentence together that even wasn't hateful or divisive or completely, you know, incoherent,
you know, I mean, say what you will about, um, Obama, he was a statesman. Um, Obama was,
other countries, I didn't vote for Obama, not a fan, but, um, articulate, um, good looking guy,
um, charisma, uh, care charismatic, you know, um, he, like you said, a statesman. Um,
and I think that won the people over. I really do. Um, a lot of people say yes, the color of
his skin does play some role in that, but he did have other, um, elements that won him the presidency.
Yeah. He was a lawyer. I mean, he was other lots of things, but again, when he got in,
he crumbled on a lot of things. So that's why people are like, oh, we've got a black president.
Like, I don't care what color they are. I don't care what's between their legs. Doesn't matter.
We have someone that will actually reverse some of these issues because obesity is getting worse
for decades. That's both of you parties over and over and over again, Ronald Reagan, articulate,
you know, beloved, but again, he was also behind the war on drugs. It's created a lot of the issues
that we see. He's created problems too. So, you know, this is the problem is that we've got a,
like you said, we've got to really just find the system and it'd be the same as a fire service.
You know, the progressive fire departments that have, you know, fitness standards and are moving
to the 24 72 and, you know, I've got peer support and, you know, accounts that are on staff. If
there are bigger ones, that's fucking amazing leadership. That's the kind of department that
people are going to, you know, it's funny is I, I had, um, I was going to a couple of conferences,
uh, fire rescue east and, um, I, I, I met, um, uh, a, uh, I had made contact with some companies
while I was over there, you know, you know, you network and stuff and I had actually started
getting quotes for, um, uh, bringing in a professional to do some of those things, career,
not career counseling, but, um, what would you just say? Like, um, like a peer support,
but it's their profession. It's their, it's their company and this is what they charge.
And I went to my leadership and I said, okay, this is what it's going to cost us way too much,
way too much. And that's a problem because we'll go spend money on a million dollar fire truck,
but we won't spend, you know, a quarter of a million dollars for a program that could,
at the end of the day, save some, someone's life, one person's life that's worth way more than a
fire truck that's worth more than a fire station. And I couldn't, I couldn't make it happen. And
it's some of those things. It's like, sometimes you think like we'll go spend money, especially
in my County that I live in, we'll spend money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions
on a park on a park. And, but we can't spend it on, you know, taking care of our employees to
ensure that they're not going through this thing. And where I just gave you a couple of examples
earlier on in the show, you know, you've got a career long, um, of in and out of people's homes,
pulling people out of burning buildings, pulling people out of, uh, vehicles that are wrecked up
against a tree or another truck or a semi truck or underneath a truck. Okay. And I can go call
after call after call. It's, it weighs on those individuals. A lot of people think that, you know,
we have dark humor as firemen. We do, we have to, it's a way of, it's a coping mechanism. Some
people drink, you mentioned several of those things earlier. Um, a lot of guys just kind of
shrug it off and like, Oh, I'm good. I can got another, I can do another 24. And then
you're like, Oh, I'm good. I can do another 24. But you don't realize how that plays on your life
as you hit 55, 60, 65 years old. It's death by a thousand cuts. That's what I say. If you
weren't at the Vegas shooting or nine 11 or some, you know, extremely acute event where you can go,
that's why you're messed up because it's not those guys had however many years prior to that event
it's that unending thing. And this is why I'm so passionate about the 24 72 is if you look at it
fiscally these departments, because now in 2024, these young candidates are going, God, this looks
terrible from the outside. When you lay it out on paper as literally one of the Gainesville
chiefs had just had on, he had a young recruit and he had a whole like spreadsheet of all the
local departments and the pros and the cons. This is what we're dealing with now, which is fantastic
because then if they choose you and they really want to be with you, but, um, the irony is the
overtime, the women's comp claims, the medical retirement costs, the line of duty deaths, the,
um, the lawsuits when we make mistakes, when you actually fix what's broken and you give the men
and women the rest and recovery and they actually get to go home 99% of the time and they have
mandatory when we all it's on all hands event, which no one would grumble about. Then you
actually save all that money and there's your money now for, you know, extra people, for a peer
support person to be, or excuse me, a mental health counselor to be on staff for, you know,
that's what I was trying to say. That's what I was getting. Exactly. So, so the money is that,
this is what's crazy. And it's the same with America. Imagine if 10% of Americans were obese
or overweight. Imagine, I mean, you're talking trillions of dollars that could go into all the
programs. So we don't need more tax money. We need to stop the bleeding, allocating it to the wrong
spots and do it proactively. And the problem is ironically the fire service, one of my friends,
guests recently was a cop and a firefighter and he was a firefighter first. And he said,
I was tired of being reactive. So when I got into law enforcement, I could be proactive.
And it's true. Yeah. They'll respond to a shooting, whatever, but they also stop cars from speeding,
kind of like I did in the pot, you know, got to be a pseudo civilian cop for a second and hope that
in 200, two minutes later, there wasn't a rollover and a mini van full of kids killed because of
that guy. You know what I mean? So this is the thing that proactive mentality does save a shit
load of money. And that frees up resources, which then can go into all the things that we need.
So you've given them all rest and recovery, and now you freed up the funds for them to have,
you know, a mental health counselor they can talk to whenever they want. You just double down and
it didn't cost you a penny. You just move the money around. It's the cup game. Yeah.
Yeah. I will say that, you know, unfortunately, I don't know if it's going to get to that direction.
You know, I hear like Orange County is looking for 24 72s. That takes a lot of staffing. I know
they're replacing over 200 a year. They're hiring 200 and losing 200 at the same year.
You know, Marion was saying that every recruit they train and lose is 18 grand. So let's say 20.
I was doing recruitment, $4 million that they're wasting just by training people that leave. So
there's the money right there. Yeah. Yeah, you can. You know what I mean? I was doing recruitment
when I was working at Lake and I remember going to the fire school down in, um, it used to be
called mid Florida. I don't know what it's called anymore. Um, but I went down there and, um,
the number one question that I got asked in that, in that class, um, and every class that I visited,
every school that I visited was, do you guys do mandatory? That's that's that is, I never even
heard of that term when I got picked up, but that was the number one question that got asked of me.
And I sat there and this was my response. And I mean, it's, I'm not going to beat around the
bush. It was just an honest response. If you join, if you're in public safety, if you're going to
join in the fire service, mandatory is a normal, it's the way it is. Yeah. Um, I don't disagree
with you, but that I said, I said, if you want to be in this profession, mandate is a, is a normal
thing. I said, you can go to this department, this department, this department, you can come
to our department, you will be mandated. Okay. And some are mandating more than others. Some are not,
you know, my, my videographer today, he just left city of Leesburg back in April. He, we picked them
up full time for, for my company and, um, um, they were down there. They're a small department.
They're 12 man on shift. Okay. I think it's like three, maybe four stations. Um, they run 12 man,
a shift. They were down nine. So they were down an entire shift. He was getting, he and other people
were getting mandated. Ev he's a paramedic and they're not, they don't, they just have to have a
medic on the truck. Okay. And there's several, but you know, most, most I'm not, but he was getting
mandated once or twice a month, three times a month, you know, down a shift. And then that's an
ATL. There was no, there was no hiring process in, in play in like in, in place. There was nobody,
uh, they, uh, the department has two individuals right now that they've been hired on as
firefighters, but don't hold it EMT certification. You look, I didn't think so either. And I
questioned it. And I was like, I was like, I don't think that's allowed. Evidently there's a loophole.
Um, now that this has gotten national attention, your show, so someone's going to be looking to
it, but we're going to be seeing steamers and horses against him. We're just going back. Hey,
maybe, but maybe I made some changes now by making that, um, making that out, you know, putting it
out there, but no, the reality of it is, is that, you know, uh, it's, um, and, and guys are, you
know, the fire service today, it's a little bit different. You know, it's, it's funny because, um,
you look at things today and it's like, I want to, I want to say it's like the NBA or the NFL.
Okay. You think of, you think the FRS as the NFL. Okay. You can get traded. You can be a free agent.
Like you went to really Creek, right? FRS, right? I went to Lake FRS. I know people today that have
literally about, they're bouncing around from department to department. They don't want to be
a paramedic. So three years here, three years over here, three years over here, bam. They're still
on the flight Florida retirement system. They've got 12 years in, you know, four departments.
Yeah. So it's almost like being a free agent. So if there's not a, it's a different, different type
of mentality, you see how things are going and you just kind of find you're never going to be
officer or anything, but it is what it is. I think the other thing that is a real kind of, uh, you
know, we'll, we'll move the needle on this whole thing is firstly, obviously if we don't fix it,
we're not going to have a fire service anymore. Like if Leesburg is nine people down and there
should be 12, that's, you know, two pulls from Jenga. You know what I mean? The other thing is
the people that you serve, are they getting three quarters of their tax money back? Cause you got
three quarters of a shift. No, they're not. When you brown out stations, when you go from three
minutes, four man to three man, are they getting a tax refund? No. So if they found out that their
service is getting worse and worse and worse because of your mismanagement, they'll be pissed.
So that's the other thing is when we like, when we go to the, what about fire stations that have
been built that are not man. So there's, so there's a fire station that was being built
when I got picked up with Lake County. Okay. It serves my community, right? And it is still to
this day unfinished, but built now there's not one fire truck sitting in there and it's been almost
five years, five years. Yes. Jesus. And so again, that's probably a staffing issue.
It's a lot of, you know what I mean? It's a lot, a lot of things, but it's mismanagement from the top,
but you're telling me that there was dedicated $2 million to build that firehouse. And it might
have been a little bit more, but let's, let's, it's probably like probably seven or eight million
actually, but a $7 million firehouse, right? And where is that money? And you know, well, they know
they must've budgeted the people. So where's, where are the people? They're not going to build
a fire station without staffing. Well, they're at another firehouse. They're at another firehouse.
Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, this is the point, but well, I want to, I want to shift from this.
And this is such an important conversation. You've got an interesting perspective working, you know,
the whole career at Orange and then going to Lake for a bit as well. But let's talk about your book.
Yeah. So Alone in the Fire. Alone in the Fire. What was it that made you write it? And what can
people find between the covers? Okay. So, well, Alone in the Fire is essentially my story about
what happened in Lake Orange County. I was inspired by a friend of mine who actually did, who wrote,
who wrote a part of the book, the front of the book, the preface, the preface of the book. And
he, he inspired me back in 2014, I believe, as he had told me, he and I came on as firemen and
he's like, I wrote a book. I always, from that moment, I thought that was pretty cool.
Working on my bachelor's at the time, got into my master's and I said to myself all through the
fire service, one day I want to write a book and I have some other ideas on what I plan to write
about, especially being in the brotherhood, you know, that being the title. But when I got
terminated from Orange County, I knew right away that not talking about it, everybody wanted me not
to talk about it. The union wanted me to stay silent. Management wanted me to stay silent.
Everybody wanted me to stay quiet. Okay. They didn't want me to ruffle any feathers. And I knew
that was wrong. Okay. I knew that if I didn't talk about it, then it would go away. It would get
swept under the rug. Right. And so I've noticed that censor this show may get, you know, 10 views.
It may get thousand. It may get a hundred thousand. Okay. Um, but I noticed that things get censored
along the way, especially some of the topics that we've discussed today. Uh, it just gets censored.
The algorithm censor you, especially now during the election year.
Mm hmm. Trust me. I see it. And I mean, I talk about it anyway, and even with, with just a DVA
just for two seconds to stand in the middle again and say what happened in October 7th was horrendous
and what continues to happen in Gaza is also horrendous. Children are dying. Sure. That's,
how dare you? I've been, I think I'm, as we sit here, I'm shadow banned at the moment for just
saying that both the things were wrong and that we're just sitting by watching these children
getting slaughtered. And you know, I, I, I say that I struggle the same things with the top,
same topics where if I, I can't say certain things, I don't, I don't, I don't let that affect me.
You know, I heard something the other day, uh, Patrick bed, David said, and we're kind of getting
off the topic real quick, but Patrick, but David had said it about podcasting. And he says, if
you're doing it for the money, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it because you want to,
you want to share some content because you enjoy talking about certain things. He says, if you can
keep to that, then it will come. Okay. And so, uh, you've been doing it much longer than I have.
I started two years ago. Um, I'm starting to see a little bit of traction on my end,
but I do notice the censorship. I do notice that there are things that don't get, I, I,
the numbers aren't there. Like I hate getting a good numbers on one thing. And then I'm like,
oh, this is going to be a really good guest. And then I get nothing. I get nothing. You,
you, we get throttled. So anyways, um, so I do notice it, but the reason, the reason I knew I
wrote the reason I wanted to write a book is it was something that was already in my head about
writing a book, but what was the story going to be when I got terminated? I had a story. So I
started to work on it immediately. The problem was, is, is I had to be somewhat cautious walking on
eggshells because I was still in the fire service. I still had a position of authority as a figurehead
in the fire department. So I couldn't talk like I wanted to, like I do today, because I had,
I was still being governed, even though I worked for a different department, I'm still in that same
environment. So, um, it, I wrote part of the book, I put it on a back burner. And then when I,
when I left Lake County last June, um, that's when I knew I needed to revisit it. And so in January
of this year, I began writing it again. I did 10 weeks. Uh, I wrote it in 10 weeks and it's called
Alone in the Fire. And it is essentially the story of me as a young man who, um, has always been,
who came out with a good, good family, a good household. Uh, I talk about in the beginning of
the book, I talk about an event called my first alarm when I saved a young girl's life. And when
I, and I'll let the readers, the, those, your listeners, I'll, I'll leave that as a cliffhanger,
but I save a young girl's life. I was a young man, I was a young kid at the time and I save a
young girl's life and, uh, she's alive today because of my reaction, my proactive beha, you
know, I reacted, okay. More was, I guess it was more reaction, um, to the, to the situation,
but she's alive today because of what I did. And that was the door to say you're going to be
someone who takes care of people, who saves people's lives, who protects people, who, um,
s uh, is someone who saves people's lives. Okay. Um, so others may live. Okay. And, um,
so my, my story, it talks about how I, I developed into leadership from, from my faith based
in the church, going in through something that's similar to the boy scouts, uh, in the, in the
church program, um, into the military, into the fire service and then going into the leadership
roles. But in the, in my book alone in the fire, I also discuss what happened and I go into detail
on the specifics, like what people were feeling at the time. Like we were stressed out, we were
exhausted. We have been wearing masks. We had been wearing, we had been isolated from our friends,
our families, from things that we enjoy doing, like going into the gym and, and, and having a good
dinner, you know, and, and, and people losing their loved ones and can't even spend the time with
them as they take their last breath. And we're going through this as a society and these are all
the stressors. Now, now add on everything that a firefighter sees during this time and then add on
everything I just said. Okay. You're still running those horrible, uh, uh, uh, uh, traumatic incidents,
those scenes still commanding, seeing people lose everything because of a fire, lose their families
and you're having to cope with it. And the only thing you're getting is, well, you got to work
tomorrow. Sorry, bud, you know, and it's just complete disconnect. And so I knew that I had
to talk about it and I knew that I had to write about it and I knew that I had to put it down
so more people could read. So the idea behind the book was to tell my story, uh, not to make money,
but to tell my story so that it, it empowers others because I was one man of, I was the only
person who stood up, the only person that said something, the only person that came out and said,
we are, we should not be doing this. I was alone in the fire and I still came out. Now I, I tell
you that I have a Christian background. I have, you know, part, one of my chapters is called
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And if you know that, if you're, if you're of Christian faith,
um, or maybe you're not of Christian faith, but you know, the story is three men who wouldn't bow
down to an idol. They've, uh, the King was their friend. They essentially wouldn't bow down to his
idol and he threw them in the furnace and he was even more pissed off because they were his
friends and they refused to listen to him. Take a knee, take a knee and bow to my idol.
He turned up the heat on the furnace. The soldiers that threw them in died on, on, uh, on exposure.
Okay. The three men ended up being unburned is how the story goes, uh, the biblical story.
And then there's a fourth man, um, in the fire with them. Well, that's the, that is God sending
his, his protective angels around those three men. So I believe I was alone in the fire,
but then again, I was not alone in the fire. I, I've been having protection the entire time.
I haven't fallen off my feet and people say, I'm glad you landed on your feet. I haven't
fallen. I've been, I've been carried, uh, this entire time. I've, I've been, I've, um, um,
been walking just fine. Um, I might have stumbled a little bit, but I'm, I'm still working, working
hard. And so that's what I want people to know about my book is, you know, I, I talk about,
you know, what Orange County did to me, how they covered up, you know, um, they covered up
quite a bit of documents that would have exonerated me after the second month, like in, in my step two
grievance was in December. It was only, you know, less than a month and a half after my termination.
And had they presented, uh, documents that I didn't know about in that step two, I could have
been exonerated. I would have my job back right then and there. I lost my step three in February
of 2022 and I immediately got pissed off because I honestly thought that I was going to get my job
back then I got pissed off. I started spending tons of money on, uh, public records and started
pulling everybody's record, everybody's personnel files, every, every written reprimand, every
document that was sent by email. I looked everybody up, text messages, phone calls, where
they were driving to everything. And I started uncovering quite a bit of stuff. Well, the most
important thing that I uncovered, and this is why this is why I filed the lawsuit was I found out
that the person that ended up terminating me, that gave me the direct order was the person who
hid the documents. She ended up having an email that said exactly what I was saying and it showed
that the individual had a religious exemption and they hid that document from my, from the people
making the decision to keep my, to bring my, bring me back. And they hid that during my step two,
my step three. And that's when I got pissed off. And so the book, it tells the story in detail.
It calls the people out by name. Um, and it also provides the receipts. So at the back of the book,
it's, it's the receipts. It's every, it's not everything because, um, if I were to give
everything in the, in the appendix, then, um, um, then you would, um, be overwhelmed because it's
so much to, to, to really grasp. Um, that's the job of my attorney, but, uh, you get the idea,
you know, uh, religious exemptions that were denied, um, people email stating that the
documents were in fact destroyed, um, religious exemptions that were never, uh, um, termination
or a written reprimands that were never officially filed. All of it, all the receipts are in the back
of the book. And so when you read, read my book alone in the fire, you'll see, you'll hear my story
and how I made the decision I made because of my background, you know, everything from a young man
growing into going into the military, going through church, going into the military and the fire
service, gaining a lot of traction. And, and, you know, um, you know, I was a well, well-liked
person. It's not that I was an asshole in fire service. I wasn't, you know, someone that was
rogue. You know, I just had an opinion and I wasn't afraid to say it. And I was respectful all the
time, but I had an opinion and, um, it cost me my job because it was a political time. And, uh, I,
I think that those people still need to be held accountable. And so that's what the book's about.
Where can people find the book? So, uh, I send everybody to my website. It's chief, Steven
Davis.com and that's spelled, uh, chief, uh, C H I E F Steven S T E P H E N Davis, D A V I S.com.
You can also go to a loan in the fire.com. Either one will get you to the book. Uh, chief day,
chief, Steven Davis.com. It kind of, um, I'm starting new things. Like if you're looking
at, uh, leadership events, I'm looking at getting into leadership events, uh, more,
more, uh, I'll be putting out more books. Uh, I got, um, this one is alone in the fire. Uh,
first alarm, uh, second alarm is, is, uh, being, being worked on here real soon. Um,
um, I'll probably start that one next year, but, uh, second alarm will be coming third alarm,
so on and so on, but it's going to be a series has a lot to say. And so, um, but yeah, chief,
Steven Davis.com. Um, you can find my book. It's, um, I've been told it's an excellent read.
I obviously, uh, think so. Um, but, uh, I would appreciate anybody's support. Um, just, uh, to,
you know, again, it's not for me to make money. It's not what I'm doing. I, I, I want people to
have it in hand and tell the story because to me, I think it's going to empower you. If you're going
through this, maybe you're alone in the fire. I'm hearing, you know, John was, uh, alone in the fire
over there in LA, you know, and I just heard of a police officer going through some stuff today.
As she was going through the appellant court, I just won my appellant court hearing. Um, it's taken
a year. Um, the, the, um, um, the judge dismissed my case last summer and I've, I've essentially
been in the appellant court fighting it to try to say, look, no, you've missed this. You've missed
this. And if anybody knows about what goes on in the court system, the appellant court is one of the
hardest outside of the Supreme court, one of the hardest courts to have reversed. And it's less,
I think a 5% chance and we were able to pull it off. And so the judge, um, ruled in favor of my
case. He basically, uh, instructed the lower courts to look at it again and to rule in a different way.
So, um, that, that doesn't keep me from, um, I'm still still in the woods to looking to get out.
So I still got a long road ahead, uh, in my, my legal battles, but my legal battle is, um, is,
is, is fighting the government and they've got unlimited amount of money. Orange County is a
billion dollar corporation. And, uh, you're talking about, you know, a guy with a family that doesn't
make that kind of money. I wish, but you know, I've got to put up, I've got to put up, they want to,
they want to hold out. We've been fighting this for two and a half years. The appellant court just
ruled in our favor. And so we've got still a long, I've got to depose a lot of people. Um, there's,
there's many, many senior staff that are getting deposed. There's the fire chief, there's, uh,
government employees, uh, civilians, there are, uh, firemen, lieutenants, captains, chief officers
that are all on the list that are going to be deposed. And that's not cheap. So any, any help
at all, uh, chiefsteveday.com, you can, there's a donate option in there. It helps with, you know,
a lot of things. And obviously, you know, the book is, is a huge, is a huge sell. You get something,
um, to empower you. Beautiful. Yeah. I think when I was talking to Greg, you know, the, the
conversation now, the same as the, the missed, you know, opportunity to change the health side
is also the government overreach side and the lies. And, you know, so if we're just going to,
you know, brush it under the carpet, which is hilarious, cause that's exactly what it was,
you know, literally overnight, we don't want to talk about anymore. Like, uh, timeout wait,
you know, you were calling me a fucking, you know, heretic cause I was talking about obesity
and, you know, mortality rates. And now you just don't want to talk about it when it's a 50% efficacy
on the vaccines and you acknowledge that six feet and most masks were bullshit and we'll just forget
it. Nah, no, sorry. Otherwise history is doomed to repeat itself. So whether it's your book or
this episode and Greg's episode and John's episode, these are powerful testimonies to prepare
people for the next one. Because if we've learned nothing, it's going to play out exactly the same
way. See, one thing, one thing too, I'll say is a lot of guys in, in Orange County, they don't
realize that the policies that were in place back in 2020, 2021, they're still there. They never
removed them. So if by some chance another pandemic happens, I'd say when, cause it will,
you know, especially these policies are still in place. These policies are still in place.
And here's the thing, because no one's addressed it in the last three years, it's kind of fallen
to like, well, this has been in place since 2021. No one said anything. So they're going to play
that game. So I'm giving you, I'm giving you the tactic of what's going to happen. I'm already
telling you what's going to happen. It's just a matter of when it's going to happen. These
policies where they can force you to take a vaccination, whether it's going to cost you a,
you can't have the job unless you get it, that's in place right now. If you want to promote
it, if you want a promotion, you have to get this. That's, that's in policy. They're not enforcing it
because they're letting it die down, letting it die down. Once there's certain people in
certain positions of power, you can't stop it. We were fortunate here in the state of Florida
because of a governor. Okay. He did a good job with that. He did a good job. You know, we were
fortunate in other States because of governor senators, Congress people, you know, leaders,
sheriffs, okay. Chief officers that stood up. But if you don't, don't look at this, if you stay quiet,
if you stay complacent, if your only concern is whether you're going to get your paycheck in two
weeks, then you're part of the problem, not the solution. And you'll be seeing this again.
I really believe that, you know, you are more than insert blank, a fireman. Okay. You're more
than that. So don't think that you can't stand up and say something in fear that this is the only
thing you knew. I was later in my career and the only thing that I knew was a fire service. I
dedicated everything. That's what I focused on everything. And I was able to, I was able to do
it. And I'm no, I'm no better than anybody else. I'm just, I'm just a simple man that had, you know,
was able to do it. So, you know, that's, that's my, that's my advice. Beautiful. Well, it's been a
long time since we sat at station 51 talking about shift change, but who'd have thought you'd be,
you know, doing what you're doing and I'm doing what I'm doing now. But it's been, it's been so
good to kind of circle around and touch base. Like, you know, the first interview, you literally
just, you know, it's just, you know, and now two years later to see, you know, what happened with
the pandemic and obviously the good side of it, everything going back to arguably normal. But
like I said, the, the power of these takeaways, the power of these testimonies and, you know,
some other great conversations from fitness and work weeks to empowering people if they're ready
to transition out that they can go forward another path. So I want to thank you so much for a great
conversation. Yeah.